Fabrication and performance of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs on (111) Si substrates

In the current work the performance of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs fabricated on silicon substrates is presented. The AlGaN/GaN material structures were grown on (111) Si by MOVPE. Static I–V characteristics with a saturation current of 0.91 A/mm and a peak extrinsic transconductance of 122 mS/mm were measured and show minimal thermal effects. For devices with a gate length of 0.7 um and 0.5 um, a unity gain frequency of 20 GHz and 32 GHz and a maximum frequency of oscillation of 22 GHz and 27 GHz, respectively were obtained. The unity gain frequencies are the highest values reported so far on AlGaN/GaN/Si HEMTs and fully comparable to those known for devices using sapphire and SiC substrates. However, the fmax to fT ratio is only about 1, which indicates on parasitic conduction through the Si substrate under small signal conditions. It is shown that the saturation current and the transconductance decrease much less with increased temperature than known for similar devices grown on sapphire.