Study of third-order intercepts and nonlinear distortion level for S-H GaAs HEMTs

Abstract

Third-order intercept (TOI) and nonlinear distortion level (NDL) are studied for two GaAs based single heterostructure HEMTs of different gate width such as (200 μm × 0.5 μm) and (150 μm × 0.5 μm). The TOI being a specific figure of merit is a biasing, input power, frequency-dependent term which is related to the third-order intermodulation distortion (IMD3) component and the study extended from low to high temperatures. The main findings are that the output referenced TOI decreased while the input referenced TOI increased with frequency. Within the measured temperature range, the TOI and NDL change significantly following the behaviour of the IMD3 component. This data would offer assistance in a way that enhances insight of the performance of the GaAs based device working at high frequency and temperature to evaluate the impacts of device nonlinearity on the affectability of the radio and to identify a distortion-free operation.