A Study of the Parasitic Properties of the Schottky Barrier Diode

Abstract

In this paper, we present a newly designed parameter extraction method of the Schottky barrier diode (SBD) with the purpose of measuring and studying its parasitic properties. This method includes three kinds of auxiliary configurations and is named as three-configuration parameter extraction method (TPEM). TPEM has such features as simplicity of operation, self-consistence, and accuracy. With TPEM, the accurate parasitic parameters of the diode can be easily obtained. Taking a GaAs SBD as an example, the pad-to-pad capacitance is 7 fF, the air-bridge finger self-inductance 11 pH, the air-bridge finger self-resistance 0.6 Ω, and the finger-to-pad capacitance 2.1 fF. A more accurate approach to finding the value of the series resistant of the SBD is also proposed, and then a complete SBD model is built. The evaluation of the modeling technology, as well as TPEM, is implemented by comparing the simulated and measured I-V curves and the S-parameters. And good agreements are observed. By using TPEM, the influence of the variation of the geometric parameters is studied, and several ways to reduce the parasitic effect are presented. The results show that the width of the air-bridge finger and the length of the channel are the two largest influencing parameters, with the normalized impact factors 0.56 and 0.29, respectively. By using TPEM and the modeling technology presented in this paper, a design process of the SBD is proposed. As an example, a type of SBD suitable for 500–600 GHz zero-biased detection is designed, and the agreement between the simulated and measured results has been improved. SBDs for other applications could be designed in a similar way.