A proposed simulation technique to study the series resistance and related millimeter-wave properties of Ka-band Si IMPATTs from the electric field snapshots

Abstract

A large-signal model and a simulation technique based on non-sinusoidal voltage excitation are used to obtain the electric field snapshots from which the series resistance and related high-frequency properties of a 35 GHz Silicon Single-Drift Region (SDR) Impact Avalanche Transit Time (IMPATT) device have been estimated for different bias current densities. A novel method is proposed in this paper to determine the parasitic series resistance of a millimeter-wave IMPATT device from large-signal electric field snapshots at different phase angles of a full cycle of steady-state oscillation. The method is based on the depletion width modulation of the device under a large-signal condition. The series resistance of the device is also obtained from the large-signal admittance characteristics at threshold frequency. The values of series resistance of a 35 GHz SDR IMPATT diode obtained from the proposed method and the large-signal admittance method are compared with experimentally reported values. The results show that the proposed method provides better and closer agreement with the experimental value.

Large-signal characterization of DDR silicon IMPATTs operating up to 0.5 THz

“…1 is used for the L-S simulation of DDR IMPATT device because of the physical phenomena taking place in the semiconductor bulk along the symmetry axis of the mesa structure of IMPATT devices. The fundamental time- and space-dependent device equations, such as Poisson's equation (equation (1)), continuity equations (equations (2) and (3)) and current density equations (equations (4) and (5)) involving mobile space charge in depletion layer are simultaneously solved under L-S conditions with appropriate boundary conditions by using a DEFM simulation method [21–23]. The fundamental device equations are given by

Fig.

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“…In the present paper, the authors have made an attempt to obtain the upper cut-off frequency limit of DDR Si IMPATTs through an avalanche response time based simulation approach [17–20]. An L-S simulation technique based on non-sinusoidal voltage excitation (NSVE) model [21–23] is developed and simulation is carried out to study L-S characteristics of DDR IMPATTs based on Si designed to operate at different mm-wave and terahertz (THz) frequencies up to the limiting frequency of IMPATT operation for DDR Si IMPATTs obtained from avalanche response time based simulation, i.e. up to 0.5 THz.…”

Multiple-band large-signal characterization of millimeter-wave double avalanche region transit time diode

“…The time and space dependent device equations i.e., Poisson's equation, continuity equation and current density equation are simultaneously solved under large-signal condition subject to appropriate boundary conditions. A doubleiterative simulation method [9][10][11][12][13] based on 1-D finite difference method (FDM) is used for this purpose. The device equations used in the simulation are given by …”

“…The large-signal program [9][10][11][12][13] is first run for a complete cycle (i.e. 0 ≤ ωt ≤ 2π ) and then repeated for consecutive cycles to ensure the oscillation stability.…”

“…The large-signal properties of DAR Si diode are obtained from indigenously developed large-signal simulation software based on NSVE model [9][10][11][12][13]. The simulation involves simultaneous numerical solution of the both time and space dependent device equations subject to appropriate boundary conditions at the depletion layer edges.…”