Advanced Full Periphery pHEMT Switch with Optimum Figure of Merit Ron*Coff

A low cost, high yield, superior performance pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor (pHEMT) technology is developed for handset switch application. This technology adopts a novel FET unit cell together with an optimized epi structure. The FET unit cell adopts the full periphery design to reduce FET footprint and improve isolation without increasing on-resistance (Ron). The optimization of epi structure can greatly reduce the Ron of this technology. The Ron is successfully reduced from 1.9 to 1.3 Ohm.mm for a 5×125μm single-gate device. Thus, this new device enables us not only to have lower insertion loss, but also to further reduce FET unit cell size. Therefore, the cost for the antenna switches is drastically reduced.