Design and characterisations of double-channel GaAs pHEMT Schottky diodes based on vertically stacked MMICs for a receiver protection limiter

Abstract

A microwave receiver protection limiter circuit has been designed, fabricated and tested using vertically stacked GaAs MMIC technology. The limiter circuit with a dimension of 2.5 × 1.3 mm 2 is formed by using double-channel AlGaAs/InGaAs pseudomorphic HEMT (pHEMT) Schottky diodes integrated with a low-loss V-shaped coplanar waveguide multilayer structure. The electrical parameter characteristics of the pHEMT Schottky diodes are presented including the C-V profile showing the presence of a double channel in the device layer structure. This unique feature can also be seen from the double-peak responses of the electron density as a function of the device layer width, which represent the high electron concentration at two different 2-DEG layers of the structure. An equivalent circuit model of pHEMT Schottky diodes is demonstrated showing good agreement with the measurement results. At zero-bias condition, the devices show high performance in diode detector applications with voltage sensitivities of more than 89 mV μW −1 at 10 GHz and at least 5.4 mV μW −1 at 35 GHz. The measurement results of the limiter circuit demonstrated the blocking of input power signals greater than 20 dBm input power at 3 GHz. To the best of our knowledge this is the first demonstration of the use of pHEMT Schottky diodes in microwave power limiter applications.

Bias voltage effect on impedance, modulus and dielectric spectroscopies of HfO2-interlayered Si-based Schottky diodes at room temperature

“…Investigating electronic infrastructures including but not limited to structural, mechanical, thermal, optical, electrical and dielectric characteristics of semiconductor-based electronic and optoelectronic devices can help improve their performance. By virtue of their ability to conduct current in one direction but not another, Schottky diodes are the basis of most semiconductor-based devices and so they were extensively researched [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10].…”

Uniformity investigation of pHEMTs small-signal parameters for pre and post multilayer fabrication in 3D MMICs

“…The active and passive elements are integrated by opening Si 3 N 4 windows of the pre-fabricated pHEMTs thus the sandwiching (metal and dielectric) layers can be reposed to develop multilayer MMICs [4]. This would reduce the overall chip size for pHEMT diode [5], limiter [6], switch [7], pHEMT Amplifiers [8], CPW transmission line [9,10], somewhat all the components are organized in stacks. The device performance of multilayer components can be improved by using V-shaped transmission lines in the vertical arrangement configuration [11] to connect the active and passive components in place of thin-film CPW transmission lines.…”

Device considerations and characterizations of pre and post fabricated GaAs based pHEMTs using multilayer 3D MMIC technology

“…Vertical-oriented monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) technology has been popularized to meet the requirements of the current market demands on compact designs and cost constraint by worldwide semiconductor industries. Three-dimensional (3D) multilayer technology has good prospects of being adopted for this purpose, as all the components and circuits are arranged in vertically staggered component layers, which offers significant chip size reduction [1][2][3]. Coplanar waveguide (CPW) MMICs allow uniplanar construction of all conductors on the same substrate.…”

“…Coplanar waveguide (CPW) MMICs allow uniplanar construction of all conductors on the same substrate. With multilayer technology, passive components are transformed from horizontal to vertical plane to create a miniaturized 3D structure wafer [3]. The advantage of pHEMTs devices using vertical-oriented multilayer 3D MMIC circuit technology is that they can be easily integrated with other MMIC passive components.…”

“…One example of the devices designed and fabricated using verticaloriented MMICs technology is a pHEMT based on AlGaAs/ InGaAs heterojunction. Various works on vertical-oriented pHEMTs are reported in the open literatures which unveiled the reduction in chip size, improved receiver performance and an extended frequency of operation [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Much interest is now on the characterization of active devices in this multilayer CPW MMIC environment.…”