Large-Signal Performance of 0.1-μm AlGaN/GaN HEMT on SiC Under EHF Stress for V-Band

This letter presents the large-signal performance degradation of 0.1-<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu $</tex-math> </inline-formula>m AlGaN/gallium nitride (GaN) high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) on silicon carbide (SiC) substrate after continuous high-power stress at 60 GHz over two days for V-band transmitter applications. The devices were evaluated under extremely high frequency (EHF) continuous wave (CW) operation in a class-AB power amplifier (PA) configuration at room temperature. It is reported that the gate current remained stable over the time, but poststress measurements indicated a significant reduction in gain, output power (<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${P} _{\mathrm {out}}$</tex-math> </inline-formula>), and power added efficiency (PAE) at <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${P} _{\mathrm {1\,dB}}$</tex-math> </inline-formula>, <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${P} _{\mathrm {2\,dB}}$</tex-math> </inline-formula>, and <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${P} _{\mathrm {3\,dB}}$</tex-math> </inline-formula> input power levels. The same devices were also subjected to dc stress conditions for five days. Furthermore, numerical analysis shows that degradation is attributed to trap generation caused by the hot electrons, primarily affecting the intrinsic parameters of the device, which is critical for V-band operation in baseband transmitter systems.