On-State and Off-State Breakdown in GaInAs/InP Composite-Channel HEMTs with Variable GaInAs Channel Thickness

Short-channel Ga0:47In0:53As high electron mobility transistors (HEMT’s) suffer from low breakdown voltages due to enhanced impact-ionization effects in the narrow band-gap channel. This could limit the application of single-channel devices to medium power millimeter-wave systems. A composite Ga0:47In0:53As/InP channel, which exploits the high electron mobility of Ga0:47In0:53As at low electric fields, and the low impact-ionization and high electron saturation velocity of InP at high electric fields can overcome this limitation. In this paper we study on-state and off-state breakdown of Ga0:47In0:53As/InP composite-channel HEMT’s with a variable GaInAs channel thickness of 30, 50, and 100 A° . Reduction of channel thickness leads to the improvement of both on-state and off-state breakdown voltages. In on-state conditions, the enhancement in the effective Ga0:47In0:53As channel bandgap that takes place when the channel thickness is reduced to the order of the de Broglie wavelength (channel quantization) effectively enhances the threshold energy for impact-ionization, which is further reduced by real space transfer of electrons from the Ga0:47In0:53As into the wider bandgap InP. Channel thickness reduction also causes a decrease in the sheet carrier concentration in the extrinsic gate-drain region and therefore, a reduction of the electric field beneath the gate. This, together with the adoption of an Al0:6In0:4As Schottky layer (increasing the gate Schottky barrier height), leads to excellent values of the gate-drain breakdown voltage. In conclusion, composite channel InAlAs/GaInAs/InP HEMT’s, thanks to the combined effect of effective band-gap increase, enhanced real space transfer into InP, and sheet carrier density reduction, allow a good trade-off between current driving capability and both on-state and off-state breakdown voltage.