50 nm MHEMT Technology for G- and H-Band MMICs

TLDR: In this article, a metamorphic HEMT (MHEMT) MMIC is presented for circuit applications including circuit applications, and the devices are passivated with BCB and SiN to achieve a median time-to-failure of 2.7 times 106 h in air.

Abstract: A metamorphic HEMT (MHEMT) MMIC technology including circuit applications is presented. The MHEMT layers are MBE grown on 4-inch GaAs wafers. The technology is based on a 50 nm gate length MHEMT and includes a 50 mum substrate backside process with dry etched through-substrate vias. For the electron confinement an ln0.8Ga0.2As/ln0.53Ga0.47As composite channel was used. The devices are passivated with BCB and SiN to achieve a median time-to-failure of 2.7 times 106 h in air. Cut-off frequencies ft and fmax of 375 GHz were extrapolated for a 2 times 15 mum gate width device. Low-noise amplifiers with more than 15 dB gain in the frequency range from 192 GHz to 235 GHz were realized.