Characterization and analysis of low-noise GaN-HEMT based inverter circuits

Abstract

In this work, the authors have propounded a novel Gallium Nitride High Electron Mobility Transistor (GaN-HEMT) structure and have analyzed its DC, RF and noise performance parameters. The DC characteristics reveal a high ON-state current in the order of 10−2 A/mm complemented by a near ideal sub-threshold swing of 70 mV/decade. High values of cut-off frequency (ft = 126 GHz) and maximum oscillation frequency (fmax = 224 GHz) are obtained which indicate high frequency range of operation. A minimum noise figure in the order of 10−5 dB has been achieved for lower frequencies of operation that remains considerably low even beyond 30 GHz (1.7 dB at 45 GHz and 4 dB at 100 GHz), indicating low-noise performance at practical operational frequencies. Further, a resistive load inverter based on GaN-HEMT has been proposed to supplant existing Silicon-based Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology which suffers from extensive scaling limitations. A thorough analysis of the inverter circuit has been carried out through mixed-mode simulation and the effect of the composition of the barrier layer in the GaN-HEMT, as well as the supply voltage of the inverter has been reported. With Si-technology reaching its bottleneck, GaN based device circuits will surely foster further research in this domain.