An investigation of the effects of doping profile variations on AlGaAs/GaAs high electron mobility transistor performance

Abstract

We present results from a theoretical study of the influence of doping profile variations on the performance of delta-doped AlGaAs/GaAs high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs). An ensemble Monte Carlo simulation coupled with a self-consistent solution of the two-dimensional Poisson equation is used to investigate HEMTs which employ both single and double delta-doped profiles with varying doping configurations. The calculated results reveal that single delta-doped HEMTs designed with identical threshold voltages exhibit improved device behavior when thinner delta-doped layers with more heavily doped concentrations are utilized. For double delta-doped HEMTs with an identical total doping in the AlGaAs layer, improved threshold voltage control is obtained as the spacing between two delta-doped layers increases. However, this increase in spacing also causes a degradation in transconductance, cut-off frequency, and switching time. As gate bias increases, the dependence of device performance (or degradation) on the spacing between doping planes becomes less pronounced due to the upward shift in threshold or ‘‘onset’’ of parallel conduction in the AlGaAs layer.