Effects of Proton-Induced Displacement Damage on Gallium Nitride HEMTs in RF Power Amplifier Applications

Author

Ives, Nathan E. ; Jin Chen ; Witulski, Arthur F. ; Schrimpf, Ronald D. ; Fleetwood, Daniel M. ; Bruce, Ralph W. ; McCurdy, Michael W. ; En Xia Zhang ; Massengill, Lloyd W.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Vanderbilt Univ., Nashville, TN, USA

Volume

62

Issue

6

fYear

2015

Firstpage

2417

Lastpage

2422

Abstract

The effects of proton-induced displacement damage in GaN HEMTs on circuit-level RF power amplifier parameters such as circuit gain, stability, and RF output power are presented. The results are explained based on the device-level degradation. Commercial-off-the-shelf GaN HEMTs from two manufacturers were compared. Differences are observed in both device and circuit level responses. Suggestions to mitigate the negative effects of displacement damage on GaN based amplifiers are also provided.

Keywords

HEMT integrated circuits; III-V semiconductors; gallium compounds; protons; radiofrequency power amplifiers; wide band gap semiconductors; GaN; HEMT; RF power amplifier; device-level degradation; proton-induced displacement damage; Gallium nitride; HEMTs; Power semiconductor devices; Protons; Radiation effects; Radio frequency; Gallium nitride; HEMT; RF; S-parameters; power semiconductor devices; proton; radiation effects;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNS.2015.2499160

Filename

7347452