A power HEMT production process for high-efficiency Ka-band MMIC power amplifiers

Author

Biedenbender, M.D. ; Lee, J.L. ; Tan, K.L. ; Liu, P.H. ; Freudenthal, A. ; Streit, D.C. ; Luong, G. ; Lai, R. ; Aust, M.V. ; Allen, B. ; Lin, T.S. ; Yen, H.C.

Author_Institution

TRW Electron. Technol. Div., Redondo Beach, CA, USA

fYear

1993

fDate

10-13 Oct. 1993

Firstpage

341

Lastpage

344

Abstract

The authors have developed a reproducible, high yield and high performance power HEMT Ka-band MMIC production process based on pseudomorphic AlGaAs/InGaAs/GaAs HEMTs. The details of the fabrication process and Ka-band MMIC power amplifier performance from 60 wafers are presented. State-of-the-art power performance have been achieved on both devices and MMICs. Single-stage MMICs with 400 /spl mu/m devices have demonstrated output power of 240 mW (0.6 W/mm) at 37 GHz with a power gain of 7.8 dB and power-added efficiency of 40%. The Ka-band MMIC power amplifiers have demonstrated output power of 1.3 W, 9 dB gain and 24% power added efficiency. Furthermore, the power MMIC HEMT process demonstrated a RF MMIC circuit yield of 25.8% for a total of 6936 possible chips from 60 wafers.<>

Keywords

HEMT integrated circuits; III-V semiconductors; MMIC power amplifiers; aluminium compounds; field effect MIMIC; field effect MMIC; gallium arsenide; indium compounds; integrated circuit yield; microwave power amplifiers; millimetre wave amplifiers; power HEMT; power amplifiers; 1.3 W; 24 percent; 240 mW; 33 to 36 GHz; 37 GHz; 40 percent; 7.8 dB; 9 dB; AlGaAs-InGaAs-GaAs; III-V semiconductors; Ka-band; MIMIC; MMIC power amplifiers; RF MMIC circuit yield; high performance; high yield; high-efficiency; power HEMT production process; pseudomorphic HEMT; reproducible; Fabrication; Gain; Gallium arsenide; HEMTs; Indium gallium arsenide; MMICs; Power amplifiers; Power generation; Production; Radiofrequency amplifiers;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Gallium Arsenide Integrated Circuit (GaAs IC) Symposium, 1993. Technical Digest 1993., 15th Annual

Conference_Location

San Jose, CA, USA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-1393-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/GAAS.1993.394438

Filename

394438