6.2 A InAsSb High Electron Mobility Transistors for High-Speed and Low Power Consumption

摘要

An extensive effort has been made within both the military and commercial sectors to reduce the power consumed by millimeter- and microwave solid-state amplifiers. Low power consumption is essential in applications that require lightweight power supplies and long battery lifetimes. With the increased reliance on small platforms such as autonomous sensors, unmanned-air- vehicles, satellites and man-portable systems, the need for reduced operating power is becoming especially important to the DoD. NRL has long been recognized as a world leader in the material growth and fabrication of high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) in the AlSb/InAs material system. The HEMT, which is an advanced version of the common field-effect transistor, uses band-gap engineered layer designs with feature sizes on the atomic scale to precisely control the material properties within the structure. When compared to InP or GaAs-based HEMTs (Fig. 7), the high performance of the AlSb/InAs HEMTs arises from the superior electronic properties of this material structure grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) with a lattice constant of 6.1 . When combined with nanoscale patterning using electron-beam lithography, these HEMTs constitute the state of the art in high-frequency performance at low operating voltage. Recently, the NRL AlSb/InAs HEMT material growth and fabrication technology was transitioned to Northrop-Grumman Space Technology through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA). This resulted in the demonstration of the first X-band and W-band monolithic microwave integrated circuits in this material system.