Integration of a novel, high quality Si3N4 metal insulator metal (MIM) capacitors deposited by (ICP-CVD) at room temperature with 50 nm T-gate InP-HEMTs to realise monolithic millimetre-wave integrated circuits (MMMICs)

In this paper we report an array-based design methodology for the realisation of monolithic millimetre-wave integrated circuits (MMMCs). This work focuses on the realisation of a 94 GHz MMMIC amplifier using an array-based approach by integrating high performance 50 nm T-gate InP-HEMTs with an f_T of 480 GHz and a Si₃N₄ metal insulator metal (MIM) capacitor technology formed using room temperature inductively coupled plasma chemical vapour deposition (ICP-CVD) nitride deposition together with a range of more conventional coplanar waveguide-based passive components. The device developed in this work exhibits the highest f_T recorded for a 50 nm gate length technology. The one stage amplifier is predicted to have a gain of 8 dB and return loss of better than -10 dB at 94 GHz. The use of a room temperature nitride deposition process allows all passive components to be realised after active device realisation, and enables a mm-wave "sea-of-gates" array-based design methodology.