Gallium Arsenide IC Technology for Power Supplies on Chip

Abstract

This paper presents a power IC technology platform based on AlGaAs/InGaAs/AlGaAs pseudomorphic field-effect transistors (pHEMTs) on a GaAs substrate. A quantitative assessment of a foundry-available 11-V GaAs pHEMT process indicates that owing to their superior material properties, the intrinsic figure of merit for pHEMT switching devices exhibits an order of magnitude improvement over state-of-the-art silicon NMOS transistors. The characterization results for GaAs pHEMTs with a breakdown voltage up to 47 V are presented and shown to be comparable to GaN-based transistors for power switching applications. An integrated pHEMT DC-DC converter that can switch at frequencies above 100 MHz is demonstrated. A 4.2-V pHEMT buck converter designed for envelope tracking applications is able to achieve 88% conversion efficiency at 100 MHz.