500 °C operation of AlGaN/GaN and AlInN/GaN Integrated Circuits

Abstract

High-temperature technology platform has been developed utilizing planar III-nitride heterostructures approach. The record high electron concentration and mobility in 2DEG channel of III-nitride devices result in very high operation speed and are remarkably stable within a broad temperature range, allowing device operation above 500 °C. The developed IC technology is based on three key elements: (1) exceptional quality III-nitride heterostructure with very high carrier concentration and mobility that enables IC fast operation in a broad temperature range; (2) heterostructure field effect transistor approach that provides fully planar IC structure which is easy to scale and to combine with the other high temperature electronic components; (3) robust design with self-compensating 2DEG load resistors, advance metallization and high-k passivation/gate dielectrics, specially developed for high temperature operation. The feasibility of technology was demonstrated by modeling, design and fabrication of inverter and differential amplifier type of ICs using III-nitride heterostructures. IC's performance was studied using probe station with heating chuck in ambient atmosphere. Temperature stability of structures with various barrier compositions was compared. At temperature exceeding 500 °C the developed ICs show the leakage currents below 10−7A, unit-gain bandwidth above 1 MHz and internal response time 45 ns.