Silicon nitride films for passivation of pHEMT based MMIC

Author

Daipuria, Ritu ; Dayal, Sindhu ; Laishram, Robert ; Mahajan, Somna ; Rawal, D.S. ; Bhat, K.M. ; Sharma, H.S. ; Sehgal, B.K. ; Muralidharan, R.

Author_Institution

Solid State Phys. Lab., Delhi

fYear

2007

fDate

16-20 Dec. 2007

Firstpage

431

Lastpage

434

Abstract

Passivation of psuedomorphic high electron mobility transistor (pHEMT) based MMIC´s by silicon nitride films deposited by PECVD is reported here. These films were first optimized for passivation of MESFET´s to get desired performance. No degradation in pHEMT/MESFET characteristics like I_dss, g_m V_p and C_gs were observed while only nominal degradation was found in Schottky diode ideality factor eta and its breakdown voltage V_B. The refractive index of the films was 1.92 with 1200 A⁰ thickness. The films have high dielectric strength > 5E6 V/cm, low tensile stress < 5E9 dynes/cm² and dielectric constant 6.9 -7.1. The etch rate of the film is ~ 900 A⁰/min in BHF and fine patterns can be etched with 1-2 minutes etch time in BHF. The film composition was analyzed by FTIR and SIMS studies.

Keywords

HEMT integrated circuits; MESFET integrated circuits; field effect MMIC; passivation; plasma CVD; silicon compounds; FTIR analysis; MESFET; PECVD; SIMS analysis; SiN; film composition; pHEMT based MMIC passivation; plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition; psuedomorphic high electron mobility transistor; Degradation; Etching; HEMTs; MESFETs; MMICs; Optical films; PHEMTs; Passivation; Semiconductor films; Silicon; FET’s; MMIC; PECVD; Passivation; silicon nitride;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Physics of Semiconductor Devices, 2007. IWPSD 2007. International Workshop on

Conference_Location

Mumbai

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-1728-5

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-1728-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IWPSD.2007.4472541

Filename

4472541