Abstract
In this work, we investigate the impact of the whole small recess offset on DC and RF characteristics of InP high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs). Lg = 80 nm HEMTs are fabricated with a double-recessed gate process. We focus on their DC and RF responses, including the maximum transconductance (gm_max), ON-resistance (RON), current-gain cutoff frequency (fT), and maximum oscillation frequency (fmax). The devices have almost same RON. The gm_max improves as the whole small recess moves toward the source. However, a small gate to source capacitance (Cgs) and a small drain output conductance (gds) lead to the largest fT, although the whole small gate recess moves toward the drain leads to the smaller gm_max. According to the small-signal modeling, the device with the whole small recess toward drain exhibits an excellent RF characteristics, such as fT = 372 GHz and fmax = 394 GHz. This result is achieved by paying attention to adjust resistive and capacitive parasitics, which play a key role in high-frequency response.
III-V compound semiconductors, represented by InP, have recently emerged as a technology of choice for Tera-Hz (THz) applications due to their low noise, low power consumption and high gain performanc
text is related to the parasitic resistance and parasitic capacitance. For the parasitic resistance, in addition to use multiple heavily doped cap layer
The gate recess process is the most critical process for InP HEMTs manufacturing, which has a significant impact on parasitic series resistances and capacitance. Kim et al. studied the effects of the side-recess spacing (Lside), reporting that increasing Lside has a large impact on the subthreshold characteristics of the device due to a significant reduction of the gate leakage current and an improvement in its electrostatic integrit
However, seldom people have studied the impact of the asymmetric gate recess technology on two-step-recessed gate process. Therefore, it is imperative to carefully investigate the impact of the whole small recess offset in a double-recessed gate process on improving the high-frequency characteristics of InP HEMTs.
N++ Cap | InGaAs, x = 0.65 | 10 nm |
---|---|---|
N+ Cap | InAlAs, x = 0.53 | 15 nm |
N+ Cap | InAlAs, x = 0.52 | 15 nm |
Stopper | InP | 4 nm |
Barrier | InAlAs, x = 0.52 | 8 nm |
δ-doping | Si | - |
Spacing | InAlAs, x = 0.52 | 3 nm |
Channel | InGaAs, x = 0.53 | 15 nm |
Buffer | InAlAs, x = 0.52 | 500 nm |
3 Inch Semi-insulating InP (100) Substrate |
In order to avoid the degradation of the epitaxial structure by high temperature, the temperature of wafer in the whole fabrication process is lower than 300 ℃. Similar to our pervious wor
To abtain a small gate recess, a e-beam gate process was developed, which is shown in
The whole small recess could be located at the large recess center, or with an offset toward source/drain, where the position of gate metals was in the middle of the small recess. The offsets from large recess center were 0.0 µm (type A), - 0.1 µm (type B), and + 0.1 µm (type C).
Finally, these devices were covered with a 20-nm-thick Si3N4 dielectric film by PECVD (280 ℃). The SEM image of the cross section of the fabricated device is shown in




Fig. 1 The EBL process for T-gate fabrication and small gate recess (The layers below the InP etch-stopped layer are not shown)
图1 用于T栅极制造和小栅极凹槽的EBL工艺(未显示InP蚀刻停止层下方的层)

Fig. 2 SEM image of the cross section of the fabricated device with the whole small recess toward source (type B), where the large gate recess was measured about 500 nm and the small recess was measured about 100 nm
图 2 所制造器件横截面的SEM图像,整个小凹槽朝向源极(B型),其中大栅极凹槽测量值约为500 nm,小凹槽测量值约为100 nm
DC characteristics of devices were measured by an HP4142 semiconductor parameter analyzer.

(a)

(b)
Fig. 3 Partial DC and RF characteristics of InP HEMT:(a) DC characteristics of the InGaAs/InAlAs HEMTs with the whole small recess offset, and (b) the measured transconductance (gm) of the devices as a function of IDS, for the value of VDS = 0.8 V (Lg = 80 nm, Wg = 50 µm × 2 )
图3 InP HEMT的部分直流以及射频特性:(a)具有整个小凹槽偏移的InGaAs/InAlAs HEMT的直流特性,以及(b)测量到的器件跨导(gm)作为IDS的函数,其中VDS = 0.8 V(Lg = 80 nm, Wg = 50 µm × 2 )

Fig. 4 Dependence of DC drain conductance on applied VDS with different structures
图4 不同结构的直流漏极电导对所加VDS 值的变化
The microwave characteristics of our representative Lg = 80 nm In0.53Ga0.47As/In0.52Al0.48As HEMTs are characterized from 0.1 to 50 GHz, using an Agilent precision network analyzer (PNA) system with off-wafer calibration. Pad parasitics are subtracted from the measured S-parameters using on-wafer OPEN and SHORT pads with identical geometry to the device pads.

(a)

(b)

(c)
Fig. 5 Measured (symbols) and small-signal modeled (lines) RF gains [ |h21|, U and maximum available gain (MAG/MSG) ] versus frequency with the Lg = 80 nm InGaAs/InAlAs HEMTs . The offsets from large recess center were 0.0 µm (type A), - 0.1 µm (type B), and + 0.1 µm (type C). The bias conditions were near the gm peak gate voltage and at VDS = 0.8 V
图5 使用 Lg = 80 nm InGaAs/InAlAs HEMT测量的和小信号建模RF增益 [|h21|、U和最大可用增益 (MAG/MSG)] 与频率的关系。 距大凹槽中心的偏移量为 0.0 µm(A 型)、- 0.1 µm(B 型)和 + 0.1 µm(C 型)。 偏置条件接近gm峰值栅极电压且VDS = 0.8 V

Fig. 6 Extracted fT against IDS of Lg = 80 nm InGaAs/InAlAs HEMTs at VDS = 0.8 V with different structures
图6 不同结构的Lg = 80 nm InGaAs/InAlAs HEMT 在VDS = 0.8 V下针对IDS提取的fT
The fT and fmax can be expressed as:
, | (1) |
. | (2) |
Symbol | Type A | Type B | Type C |
---|---|---|---|
VGS [V] | -0.50 | -0.45 | -0.40 |
Cgs [fF/mm] | 418 | 432 | 388 |
Cgd [fF/mm] | 103 | 97 | 99 |
RS [Ω·mm] | 0.159 | 0.149 | 0.169 |
RD [Ω·mm] | 0.387 | 0.397 | 0.377 |
gds [mS/mm] | 305.5 | 304.5 | 240 |
gmi [mS/mm] | 1 513 | 1 566 | 1 487 |
fT_meas [GHz] | 356 | 349 | 372 |
fmax_model [GHz] | 331 | 336 | 394 |
Lg(nm) | gm,max(mS/mm) | fT(GHz) | fmax(GHz) | Time | Ref |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
75 | 1 950 | 270 | 910 | 2017 |
[ |
100 | 1 700 | 300 | 700 | 2022 |
[ |
70 | 1 600 | 310 | 540 | 2014 |
[ |
75 | 1 331 | 260 | 800 | 2021 |
[ |
In summary, we experimentally investigate the impact of the whole small recess offset on the lattice-matched InP-based HEMTs in a double-recessed gate process, where Lg = 80 nm. These devices exhibit the same RON, and the device with the whole small recess toward source has the largest gm_max due to a smaller Rs. For RF responses of these devices, the device with the whole small recess toward drain achieves an excellent characteristic of fT = 372 GHz, and fmax = 394 GHz. In the following research, the gm of the device will be further improved to increase the fT by using a channel with Indium-rich composition.
This work was supported by Development of Terahertz Multi-user RF Transceiver System (Z21110000 4421012). The authors would like to thank Yan-kui Li for his assistance during the measurements. We thank Engineer Feng Yang for his discussion on the process and Professor Ding Peng for his guidance.
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