On the large-signal modeling of High Power AlGaN/GaN HEMTs

In this paper are given some recent results on modeling of High Power GaN HEMT devices. The GaN HEMT is very promising for high power application, but we push device to the limits, so many issues are becoming critical. For example, access resistances Rs, Rd in high power GAN HEMT are bias and temperature dependent - their extraction from cold FET measurements can lead to over optimistic prediction for output power. Thermal management, self-heating modeling are another very important issue - they influence reliability, power and PAE. Models without dynamic self-heating are not practical for GaN. The models without breakdown can easily predict world records for PAE, output power/mm etc. Some examples are given using vectorial Large Signal Measurements (LSNA/NVNA) to provide useful, global info about device behavior, influence of traps, knee voltage walkout etc.