Integrated 10-GHz Graphene FET Amplifier

Abstract

Graphene has unique electrical and mechanical properties which can pave the way for new types of devices for microwave applications. However, emerging technologies often have problems with yield and still considerable variation in device parameters cause great challenges for circuit design. In this paper, we present the design and development of an integrated graphene FET amplifier addressing this challenge. A representative graphene FET was selected from a set of devices and then the input and output matching circuits were designed using the negative-image technique. The two-finger GFET with a gate length of 0.5 μm exhibit a typical f T and f max of 35 GHz and 37 GHz, respectively. The integrated graphene FET amplifier was fabricated on a high-resistivity silicon substrate together with thin film capacitors, airbridges, and spiral inductors. A record high gain of 4.2 dB at 10.6 GHz was measured for a single transistor amplifier stage and agrees well with simulations. These results indicate significant progress towards active microwave circuits based on emerging 2D materials.INDEX TERMS Amplifiers, field-effect transistors, graphene, integrated circuits, microwave electronics, negative-image techniques. I. INTRODUCTION

An Extraction Method for Mobility Degradation and Contact Resistance of Graphene Transistors

“…The extraction method yields a constant R c value which can be of special interest for technology evaluation [3] as well as an initial guide for modeling purposes towards the design of specific applications at a fixed bias point, e.g., high-frequency circuits 3 [25], [26]. For the interested reader, a bias-dependent contact resistance model, which is out of the scope of this work, has been reported elsewhere [19].…”

Graphene‐Based Microwave Circuits: A Review

“…The negative‐image equivalent circuit technique [ 92 ] has been applied for a GFET amplifier design in ref. [93] in order to estimate the device parameters without developing a detailed device model and to manage process variations from fabrication run to fabrication run.…”

“…[102][103][104][105][106] For ballistic transport the ). [93] Copyright 2021, The Authors, published by IEEE.…”

“…The gray lines are simulations with other GFET transistors. Reproduced under the terms of the CC-BY Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) [93]. Copyright 2021, The Authors, published by IEEE.…”

Numerical Evaluation of the Effect of Geometric Tolerances on the High-Frequency Performance of Graphene Field-Effect Transistors

“…This feature is extremely interesting, for example, for the aerospace field, particularly because it is accompanied by graphene's inherent tolerance to radiation [30][31][32]. For these reasons, several examples of graphene-based RF devices have been proposed in recent years, including antennas [33,34], transmitters and receivers [35][36][37], modulators and demodulators [38][39][40][41][42][43], shields [44], power and signal amplifiers [45][46][47][48], mixers [49][50][51], and oscillators [52][53][54]. Important milestones were recently reached towards the large-scale fabrication of graphene electronic devices [55] and their integration into traditional semiconductor fabrication lines [56].…”