GaN-based high electron mobility transistors (HEMT) on Si (111) substrates have large potential for applications in the 5G telecommunication field. However, for this potential to be fully realized, all loss mechanisms need to be minimized. It is known that typical metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) processes used to grow the GaN epitaxial layers can cause considerable parasitic conductivity at the interface of the AlN nucleation layer to the high-resistivity Si substrate, leading to reduced gain and power added efficiency in amplifiers. Reducing this parasitic conductivity is hence of utmost importance to render GaN-on-Si a significant contributor to next-generation 5G power amplifier technology. In this work, we employ secondary ion mass spectroscopy, spreading resistance profiling and insertion loss measurements up to 28 GHz using coplanar waveguides fabricated on the epitaxial layer stacks to study the origin and characterize the parasitic conductivity. While a single heat-up process in an AIXTRON G5+ reactor chamber cleaned using Cl2 does not introduce any extra dopants in the Si substrate, the epitaxial growth of (Al,Ga)N-based HEMT buffer layer stacks leads to the diffusion of Al and, to a lower extent, Ga acceptors into the Si substrate. Optimization of the MOCVD process towards lower growth temperatures leads to a strong reduction of density of diffused acceptors. This reduction goes in line with a significant decrease of the insertion loss from 0.45 dB mm −1 to only 0.20 dB mm −1 at a frequency of 28 GHz.

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AlGaN/GaN HEMTs and MOS-HEMTs using Gd2O3 as gate dielectric were irradiated with 2 MeV protons up to fluence of 1 × 10 15 cm -2 . Results showed that proton irradiation causes a strong degradation in the Schottky gate devices, featured by more than three orders of magnitude increase in reverse leakage current, a 30% decrease in maximum drain current and same percentage of increase in ON-resistance, respectively. Scanning transmission electron microscopy showed that radiation induced a diffusion of Ni into Au in the gate and void formation, degrading the transistors characteristics. The Gd2O3 gate dielectric layer prevented this diffusion and void formation. MOS-HEMTs with Gd2O3 gate dielectric show 50% less decrease of performance under proton irradiation than Schottky gate HEMTs (conventional HEMTs). The trapping effects of Gd2O3 gate layer before and after irradiation are also discussed.

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The reliability of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs adopting Fe and C co-doping, with high and low carbon doping concentration was investigated by means of different stress tests. Firstly, DC and pulsed I-V characterization at room temperature are discussed, then drain step stress tests at different gate voltages are compared, afterwards, the constant stress at different bias points are discussed. Results show that the high C HEMTs showed reduced DIBL, smaller leakage current, as well as decreased electric field, leading to an improved robustness during on-state stress testing, with respect to the reference ones. Failure modes during constant voltage stress consists in a decrease of drain current and transconductance, accelerated by temperature and electric field.