Received: 3 April 2021 Accepted: 13 May 2021

DOI: 10.1002/mmce.22775

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Composite-channel In0.17Al0.83N/In0.1Ga0.9N/GaN/
Al0.04Ga0.96N high electron mobility transistors for RF
applications

Revathy A. | Boopathi C. S.

Department of Electrical and Electronics

Engineering, SRM Institute of Science and
Abstract
Technology, Chennai, India In this work, we present the high performance of composite channel based
In0.17Al0.83N/In0.1Ga0.9N/GaN/Al0.04Ga0.96N high electron mobility transistors
Correspondence
Revathy A., Department of Electrical and (HEMTs) on a sapphire substrate. A numerical simulation is carried out for
Electronics Engineering, SRM Institute of the proposed and conventional GaN channel-based HEMTs using TCAD. Due
Science and Technology, Chennai 603203,
to the strong polarization of InAlN/InGaN, enhanced electron confinement
India.
Email: [email protected] and high electron mobility of composite channel based proposed device shows
excellent DC and RF characteristics with improved linearity than conventional
GaN channel based HEMTs. A 55 nm T-gate device demonstrates 4.45 A/mm
drain current density (IDS) at VGS = 0 V, 0.7 S/mm stable transconductance
(GM) for a wide range of gate bias, and excellent FT/Fmax of 274/288 GHz.
Benefiting from the Al0.04Ga0.96N buffer (back-barrier), the device shows a very
low sub-threshold drain leakage current and high breakdown voltage (VBR) of
43.5 V. The combination of high FT/Fmax, stable transconductance, and high
breakdown voltage of the proposed HEMTs shows the great promise for high
power and wide-bandwidth millimeter-wave applications.

KEYWORDS
back-barrier, composite channel, millimeter-wave applications, polarization, stable
transconductance, wide-bandwidth

1 | INTRODUCTION microwave low-noise applications as they allow achiev-

ing good microwave noise performance,4-6 building high
With the increase in demand for high data rate transmis- power amplifiers (HPAs), low noise amplifiers (LNAs) in
sions, the next-generation of wireless communication sys- the same epitaxial material, and eliminating the receiver
tems started utilizing millimeter-wave spectrums protection circuitry (reducing the overall RF front-end
(30-300 GHz). The key component of 5G and 6G is a noise contribution), due to excellent robustness of GaN-
solid-state power amplifier (SSPA). The outstanding HEMTs.
material properties such as high output power density, High linear GaN HEMTs are desirable for millimeter
high-frequency operation, high terminal voltage opera- wave communications for avoiding cross-talk, which can
tion, high gain and, high power-added efficiency, GaN- also, limit the bandwidth. Recently, InAlN/GaN-based
based high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) are HEMTs have demonstrated impressive DC and RF
widely used in millimeter-wave power amplifiers than Si- performance.7-29
Ge, GaAs, and silicon LDMOS.1-3 Nowadays, GaN-based Weichuan Xing et al. demonstrated LG 40 nm InAlN/
HEMTs are attracting a significant attention for GaN HEMT with 2.66 A/mm current density and FT/

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2 of 13 A. AND C. S.

FMAX of 250/60 GHz.20 LG 80 nm InAlN/GaN HEMT In0.1Ga0.9N/GaN based InAlN HEMTs with Al0.04Ga0.96N
recorded FT/FMAX of 200/33 GHz and 1.2 A/mm of out- buffer (device A) on Sapphire substrate. The proposed
put current density.21 InAlN/GaN HEMT with 55 nm device structure is investigated using the ATLAS TCAD
gate length showed a maximum of 2.8 A/mm of drain simulator by incorporating polarization models, SRH
current density, 12 V of breakdown voltage and, FT/FMAX recombination models, nitride low and high filed mobility
of 250/204 GHz.22 Peng Cui et al. fabricated LG 50 nm models, and Selberherr's impact ionization models. Com-
InAlN/GaN HEMT and the device exhibited FT/FMAX of posite channel based HEMT with 55 nm T-shaped gate
125/270 GHz and 20 V of breakdown voltage.23 structure shows very high drain current density, improved
Lattice match (LM) with GaN eliminates strain breakdown voltage, excellent FT/FMAX along with stable
related issues in the growth of In0.17Al0.83N/GaN struc- transconductance for the wide range of gate bias than con-
tures and interface polarization charges are 2 to 3 times ventional InAlN/GaN-based HEMTs (device B).
higher than AlGaN/GaN heterostructures.7-29 Despite
high DC and RF performance, the existing devices suffer
from nonlinearity due to its transconductance (GM) drop- 2 | DEVICE DESCRIPTION,
off at high gate bias (VGS). The non-linear source resis- SIMULATION MODELS, AND
tance and density-dependence velocity saturation are the MATERIAL PARAMETERS
major reason for the GM drop-off.24,25 Therefore,
improvement in linearity of the device to be considered Composite channel based InAlN/InGaN/GaN/AlGaN
and there have been very few research groups are investi- heterostructure on a sapphire substrate (device A)
gated and reported on linearity improvement of InAlN shown in Figure 1A. Conventional InAlN/GaN HEMT
barrier based III-nitride HEMTs. with AlGaN buffer (also act as back-barrier) (device B) is
Weichuan Xing et al. demonstrated planar nanostrip shown in Figure 1B. The InAlN barrier had a thickness of
channel InAlN/GaN MOSHEMT with improved linear- 11 nm with 83% Al content in both devices and 1000 nm
ity.26 However, the peak transconductance (GM) and cut- Al0.04Ga0.96N buffer as a natural back-barrier. Composite
off frequency of the device are lower than conventional channel HEMT had 4 nm In0.1Ga0.9N and 5 nm GaN chan-
HEMT. Yachao Zhang et al. presented the InGaN double nel layers. Whereas, conventional HEMT had a 9 nm GaN
channel (DC) HEMT on Sapphire substrate27 and the channel. Low Al content AlGaN was used as a back-barrier
device shown stable transconductance in spite of low to avoid excessive stress in the GaN layer and helped the
FT/FMAX. device for enhanced carrier confinement in the channel. A
InGaN channel based heterostructures revealed superior 55 nm foot length T-shaped gate region is formed with
carrier confinement and remarkable carrier transport prop- 100 nm stem height for wide cross-sectional gate area with
erties.28,30 In this work, we propose composite channel minimum gate length while maintaining very low the gate

FIGURE 1 (A) Proposed composite channel InGaN/GaN-based HEMT (B) Single-channel GaN HEMT
A. AND C. S. 3 of 13

FIGURE 2 (A) Energy band diagram of composite channel InGaN/GaN HEMT (B) Energy band diagram of single channel GaN HEMT

Ptotal ¼ ½PPE ðbottomÞ þ PSP ðbottomÞ

resistance RG.16 The source to drain distance (LSD) was  ½PPE ðtopÞ þ PSP ðtopÞ ð1Þ
520 nm and gate to drain distance (LGD) was kept at
365 nm. Both devices are passivated by 50 nm Si3N4 for
eliminating surface trap related issues. The Schottky gate The interface charge density is given by32,33:
contact was realized by Au /Ni metal stack and Ti/Au metal
stacks were defined as source/drain Ohmic contacts. ∂P
ρP ¼ r:P ¼  ð2Þ
TCAD simulation energy band diagram of the pro- ∂Z
posed device and conventional device are displayed in
Figure 2A,B, respectively. As seen in the band diagram The piezoelectric polarization of wurtzite III-nitride
of Figure 2A, the InGaN/GaN channel-based channel binary alloys is obtained from34:
device had a deeper well than conventional GaN


channel-based devices, and also the inclusion of a a  a0 C 13
PPE ¼ 2 e31  e33 , ð3Þ
5 nm GaN layer along with InGaN channel results in a0 C 33
uniform electron distribution in the 2DEG. Conse-
quently, the stable transconductance (GM) and cut-off where C13 and C33 are elastic constants. And a0 and a
frequency (FT and Fmax) for a wide-range of gate bias. represent relaxed and strained crystal lattice structure
The sub-threshold leakage current is expected to be hexagonal edge respectively. The spontaneous polari-
lower than conventional HEMT due to deeper zation (PSP) and piezoelectric constants of AlxGa1-xN,
potential well. In1-xAlxN, and InxGa1-xN ternary alloys are obtained
The proposed and conventional HEMTs are simu- from second-order polynomial regressions.35 The dop-
lated using ATLAS two-dimensional (2D) TCAD simula- ing and temperature-dependent nitride low and high
tor by incorporating GaN polarization model, nitride field mobility models are used in this simulation as
low field mobility model, nitride high field mobility follows36:
model, Fermi–Dirac model, Shockley–Read–Hall (SRH)

β 1  T β 2
recombination model and, Selberherr's impact ioniza- T ðμmax  μmin Þ 300
tion models. The polarization models for the III-nitride μ0 ðT, N Þ ¼ μmin þ  αð300
T β4
, ð4Þ
300 Þ
heterostructure are essential for TCAD simulation. The 1þ N
T β3
N ref ð300 Þ
spontaneous and piezoelectric polarization models are
defined in the physics section. The fixed polarization
charge density at the III-nitride interface is obtained where T is the temperature, N is the total doping density,
from spontaneous polarization (PSP) and piezoelectric and α , β1 , β2 , β3 , β4 , μmin , μmax , and N ref are fitting
polarization (PPE).31 The total polarization at the parameters. And the temperature-dependent nitride high
heterostructure interface as follows: field mobility model as follows36:
4 of 13 A. AND C. S.

FIGURE 3 (A) Interface charge details of composite channel InGaN/GaN HEMT (B) Interface charge details of single-channel
GaN HEMT

F I G U R E 4 (A) Polarization charge concentration of composite channel InGaN/GaN HEMT (B) Polarization charge concentration of
GaN channel HEMT

n11
μ0 ðT, N Þ þ vsat EEn1 n  n2ie
μ¼  n2  c n1 , ð5Þ net ¼
RSRH h 
E
i h 
E
i0 ,
1 þ a EEc þ EEc τp p þ nie exp KTtrap þ τn p þ nie exp KTtrap
ð6Þ

where μ0 is the low field mobility as expressed in (4), E

is the electric field, vsat , Ec , a , n1 , and n2 are fitting where τp and τn are the holes and electrons lifetimes and
parameters of Faramand modifier Thomas model for intrinsic carrier concentration is denoted by nie . Intrinsic
nitrides. Fermi level to trap energy level is E trap and T is the tem-
The trap state is created within the bandgap due perature. The material parameters for the TCAD simula-
to crystal lattice defects or dopants. To capture the tions are taken from.37
trap-assisted recombination, the SRH model is The interface charge details and polarization charge
considered36 : concentration are depicted in Figures 3 and 4, respectively.
A. AND C. S. 5 of 13

F I G U R E 5 I-V characteristics of Lg 55 nm (A) composite channel InGaN/GaN HEMT (B) GaN channel HEMT (C) GaN channel HEMT
without back-barrier22

Device A had shown a total charge density of 3 | RESULTS A ND DISCUSSIONS

3.957  1013 cm2 and mobility of 1650 cm2/v-s in the
2DEG (Two-dimensional electron gas) channel. Device B I-V characteristics of LG 55 nm device A and device B are
had shown a density of 2.4  1013 cm2 and, mobility of shown in Figure 5A,B, respectively. Device A shown a
1425 cm2/v-s. Device A had shown a very high polariza- peak drain current density (IDS) of 5 A/mm at 1 V gate
tion charge concentration (62.5 C/cm3) due to relatively bias (VGS) and the device is pinched-off perfectly at
narrow bandgap of the InGaN material yield high 2DEG VGS = 7 V. The Device B had shown 3.25 A/mm at
density in the proposed HEMT and the low effective elec- VGS = 1 V and pinched-off at VGS = 4 V. The high
tron mass of InGaN channel27,28,30 improved the mobility sheet charge density and enhanced carrier confinement
of carriers than the conventional GaN channel. Mean- of proposed device results in very high output current
while, to improve the breakdown voltage of the narrow density than conventional HEMT devices. The fabricated
bandgap channel device, proposed HEMT had composite LG 55 nm InAlN/GaN HEMT22 was used to calibrate the
channel InGaN/GaN with AlGaN superlative back-barrier simulation models. The simulation and experimental
proposed in this work. The proposed device posse's advan- results of output characteristics are presented in
tages of GaN and InGaN channel heterostructure and Figure 5C. The simulation results confirmed the great
hence high current density, stable transconductance, high accuracy with measured results.19 The DC transfer char-
breakdown voltage, and high RF performance. acteristics of Device A and Device B are plotted in
6 of 13 A. AND C. S.

FIGURE 6 Transfer characteristics of Lg 55 nm (A) composite channel InGaN/GaN HEMT (B) GaN channel HEMT

F I G U R E 7 Transconductance characteristics of Lg 55 nm (A) composite channel InGaN/GaN HEMT (B) GaN channel HEMT (C) GaN
channel HEMT without back-barrier22
A. AND C. S. 7 of 13

FIGURE 8 Log-scale plot of IDS-VGS of Lg 55 nm (A) composite channel InGaN/GaN HEMT (B) GaN channel HEMT

B. This may result from the gate leakage current in

device B at high VGS.
Figure 7. presents the transconductance properties of
HEMTs. The peak extrinsic transconductance (gm MAX)
of 0.7 and 0.62 S/mm are obtained for device A and
device B, respectively. It is noted that device A had
shown stable transconductance, that is, the linearity for a
wide range of gate bias than conventional device
B. Moreover, the gate voltage swing (GVS) is found to be
6.3 V at VDS = 10 V, which is higher than the DC InGaN
HEMT (GVS = 5.2 V).27 The ultra-high stable trans-
conductance results from enhanced and uniform carrier
confinement of composite channels. The additional
AlGaN superlative back-barrier elevates the carrier con-
finement even better. This excellent improvement in line-
arity strongly indicates that the merits of proposed
F I G U R E 9 (A) Breakdown characteristics of Lg 55 nm
HEMTs for wide-bandwidth applications.
composite channel InGaN/GaN HEMT (B) Breakdown The log-scale transfer characteristics of the HEMTs
characteristics of Lg 55 nm GaN channel HEMT are plotted in Figure 8. The Device A clearly show a
high ION/IOFF ratio than Device B at VDS = 6 and 10 V.
The subthreshold slope (SS ¼ dðdVlogI DS ÞÞ is extracted to be
GS

66 and 78 mV/dec for device A and device B, respectively

Figure 6 at VDS = 2, 6 and 10 V. The extracted threshold at VDS = 6 V. The drain induced barrier lowering (DIBL)
voltage (Vth) of device A and device B are 6.95 and of 52.79 mV/V and 64.34 mV/V recorded for device A and
4.4 V respectively at VDS = 10 V. The threshold voltage device B respectively. The low leakage current and
of the devices is extracted from the extrapolation method, high ION/IOFF ratios of the proposed device resulting
in which Vth is extracted as the VGS intercept of the linear from enrich carrier confinement. The off-state break-
extrapolation in the linear region. Device A has more down characteristics of HEMTs with VG = 10 V,
negative threshold voltage than B because, device A which corresponds to an off state are shown in
required high negative bias (VGS) to deplete the carriers Figure 9. The Selberherr's impact ionization model,
in the channel than Device B. From the Figures 5 and 6, deep donor, deep acceptor, shallow donor, SRH recom-
the I-V curves of device A and device B are very different. bination, and Augur recombination models are used in
Compared to Device A, the insignificant difference of IDS the breakdown simulation. The breakdown voltage is
between VGS = 1 V and VGS = 0 V is found in device extracted from ID-VD curves at the intersection of the
8 of 13 A. AND C. S.

F I G U R E 1 0 (A) Electric
field distribution of Lg 55 nm
composite channel InGaN/
GaN HEMT at breakdown
condition. (B) Electric field
distribution of Lg 55 nm GaN
channel HEMT at breakdown
condition

F I G U R E 1 1 (A) Potential distribution of Lg 55 nm composite channel InGaN/GaN HEMT at breakdown condition. (B) Potential
distribution of Lg 55 nm GaN channel HEMT at breakdown condition

FIGURE 12 (A) Gate to source capacitance (CGS) characteristics, (B) Gate to drain capacitance (CGD) characteristics
A. AND C. S. 9 of 13

FIGURE 13 Current gain cut-off frequency (FT) and maximum oscillation frequency (FMAX) characteristics

F I G U R E 1 4 (A) Microwave performance of Lg 55 nm composite channel InGaN/GaN HEMT (B) Microwave performance of Lg 55 nm
GaN channel HEMT (C) GaN channel HEMT without back-barrier22
10 of 13 A. AND C. S.

extrapolated saturation segment (an VD saturated and

a sudden increase in ID).
Device A shown a breakdown voltage (VBR) of 43.5 V
and Device B shown a VBR of 26 V. The improvement in
the breakdown voltage of Device A due to a lower drain
leakage current than Device B. The electric field and
potential distribution of the HEMTs under breakdown
conditions are shown in Figures 10 and 11, respectively.
The electric field located near the drain side of the gate
edge of device A is higher than the device B. Enhanced
carrier confinement due to composite channel and back-
barrier results in very low buffer leakage currents in
device A exhibited high VBR than conventional device
B. The HEMTs breakdown voltage further can be
improved by field plate and Schottky source/drain con-
tacts with compromise in cut-off frequency.
The fringing field exist between the gate side wall and FIGURE 15 FT/FMAX of nano-scale InAlN/GaN-based HEMTs

source/drain wall results in parasitic capacitances devel-

oped in the device. The gate to source capacitance (CGS)
and gate to drain capacitance (CGD) characteristics are
shown in Figure 12. Both CGS and CGD are flat up to the
threshold voltage of the devices because of depleted char-
ges in the channel and then the capacitances are largely
influenced by change in the 2DEG carrier concentration
when the device turned on. As the gate bias increased,
the gate electric field and intrinsic polarization field
increases. Figure 13A,B displays the FT and FMAX varia-
tion with VGS of device A and B respectively. The device
A had a stable FT and FMAX than device B resulting from
stable transconductance (gm) behavior of the composite
channel HEMT.
Figure 14 shows the microwave performance of
HEMTs at VDS = 6 V and VGS = 3 V. The current gain
cut-off frequency FT and power gain cut-off frequency
FMAX are extracted from current gain jh21j2 and unilat-
eral power gain jUj with LG 55 nm gate length. Device A FIGURE 16 VBR/FT of nano-scale InAlN/GaN-based HEMTs
exhibited an FT/FMAX of 274/288 GHz and Device B had
shown an FT/FMAX of 259/264 GHz. For 55 nm gate
length, the satisfactory cut-off frequency is obtained, proposed composite channel based HEMTs shown high
which can be further improved by scale down the device FT/VBR and FMAX/VBR than the existing works. The FT
dimensions. Figure 15 displays the summary of FT/FMAX and FMAX of a HEMT and RF output power of a basic
of nano-scale InAlN/GaN-based HEMTs. The proposed power amplifier can be expressed as follow38:
HEMTs had shown simultaneous improvement in both
FT and FMAX than existing devices. The high Johnson fig- GM
FT ¼ , ð7Þ
ure of merit (JFoM = FT  VBR) and FMAX  VBR prod- 2π ðC GD þ CGS Þ
uct of HEMTs are key parameters for high terminal
voltage operation of millimeter-wave power HEMTs for 1
FT ¼ , ð8Þ
delivering high output power density and high efficiency 2πτ
at a millimeter-wave frequency from Equation (7) to (11).
Figures 16 and 17 show FT/VBR and FMAX/VBR details of vsat
F T,max ¼ , ð9Þ
high-frequency InAlN/GaN HEMTs, respectively. The 2πLG
A. AND C. S. 11 of 13

communications, 6G mobile communications, and

millimeter-wave RADAR applications.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors acknowledge the SRM Institute of Science
and Technology, Chennai, India for providing the facility
to carry out this research work.

ORCID
Revathy A. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5938-9143

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dynamic access resistance in the gm and fT linearity of AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
AlGaN/GaN HEMTs. IEEE Trans Electron Dev. 2005;52(10):
2117-2123. https://doi.org/10.1109/TED.2005.856180. A. Revathy has received her Bache-
25. Khurgin JB, Bajaj S, Rajan S. Amplified spontaneous emission
lor of Engineering (2009) in Electri-
of phonons as a likely mechanism for density-dependent veloc-
ity saturation in GaN transistors. Appl Phys Express. 2016;9(9).
cal and Electronics Engineering from
https://doi.org/10.7567/APEX.9.094101. Anna University (India) and she
26. Xing W, Liu Z, Ranjan K, Ng GI, Palacios T. Planar nanostrip- received her Master of Engineering
channel Al2O3/InAlN/GaN MISHEMTs on Si with improved (2013) in Power Electronics and
linearity. IEEE Electron Device Lett. 2018;39(7):947-950. https:// Drives from Anna University (India).
doi.org/10.1109/LED.2018.2837886. At present she is pursuing PhD in the Department of
27. Zhang Y, Wang Z, Guo R, et al. High performance InGaN dou-
Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Faculty of
ble channel high electron mobility transistors with strong cou-
Engineering and Technology, SRM Institute of Sci-
pling effect between the channels. Appl Phys Lett. 2018;113
(233503). https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5051685. ence and Technology, Chennai, India. Her research
28. Zhao Y, Xue JS, Zhang JC, Zhou XW, Zhang YC, Hao Y. focuses on modeling and simulation of III–Nitride
InAlN/InGaN/GaN double heterostructure with improved
A. AND C. S. 13 of 13

power semiconductor devices for future high-power for many national and international peer journals.
switching and millimeter-wave RF applications. His broad areas of research are Power semiconductor
device modeling and Simulation, Electric vehicle,
C. S. Boopathi received Master of
Energy Management Control Strategy, ANN, and Par-
Engineering (2001) from Annamalai
ticle Swarm Optimizations.
University (India) and Doctoral
degree (2015) from SRM University
(India). He is working as Associate
Professor in the Department of Elec-
How to cite this article: A. R, C. S. B. Composite-
trical and Electronics Engineering,
channel In0.17Al0.83N/In0.1Ga0.9N/GaN/
Faculty of Engineering and Technology, SRM Insti-
Al0.04Ga0.96N high electron mobility transistors for
tute of Science and Technology, Chennai, India. And
RF applications. Int J RF Microw Comput Aided
he has published more than 41 papers in scientific
Eng. 2021;e22775. https://doi.org/10.1002/mmce.
journals. He has been the advisor of 6 Ph.D. and
22775
numerous Post Graduate students. He is the reviewer