Elimination of the Low Resistivity of Si Substrates in GaN HEMTs by Introducing a SiC Intermediate and a Thick Nitride Layer

Abstract

We report the effect of a thick nitride layer on the high-frequency performance of AlGaN/GaN highelectron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) grown by metal oxide chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) on a 6-inch Czochralski (Cz)-Si substrate. The thick nitride layer was grown via a 3C-SiC intermediate layer. A significantly low parasitic pad capacitance and a comparable cutoff frequency of 4.5 GHz for 2-μm gate length devices were achieved along with excellent electron transport characteristics, such as a mobility of ~2200 cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> /V-s and a drain current density of 520 mA/mm. The extracted small-signal equivalentcircuit parameters also verified the accuracy of the measured cutoff frequency and parasitic capacitances.