Measurement-based Investigation of the DC and RF Transconductance for Various HEMT Technologies in High-and Low-temperature Conditions
Résumé
The purpose of this experimental study is to evaluate quantitatively the impact of the temperature on the behavior of various high electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) technologies through the analysis of the DC and RF transconductance. The experimental data are reported for six different HEMT devices, in order to develop a comparative analysis based on various technologies, including gallium arsenide (GaAs) and gallium nitride (GaN) materials, matched and pseudomorphic HEMTs, single- (S-H) and double-heterojunction (D-H) HEMTs, and both virgin and multi-layer devices. The reported findings show that the impact of the ambient temperature on the HEMT behavior strongly depend on the tested technology and operating conditions. As a matter of fact, a higher temperature can lead to increased or degraded transconductance, depending on the device technologies and bias point. In the GaAs-based devices, an operating bias condition at which the DC and RF transconductance are temperature insensitive can be defined, owing to two-opposite temperature-dependent effects counteracting with each other.