Status of the parasitic effects and reliability issues of InP electron devices

Parasitic effects, degradation mechanisms, and related lifetimes are reviewed for InP electron devices (mainly high electron mobility transistors, or HEMTs, and heterojunction bipolar transistors, or HBTs) and compared with those obtained from similar GaAs-based devices. The parasitic effects penalizing the IC integration of the InP-based HEMT are found to be very similar to those affecting the GaAs FET. Degradation mechanisms related to metallurgy have been clearly identified for InP electron devices. However, further investigations have to be carried out in order to assess the surface and bulk-induced degradations.<>