학술논문

Comparison of N- and Ga-Face GaN HEMTs Through Cellular Monte Carlo Simulations
Document Type
Periodical
Source
IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices IEEE Trans. Electron Devices Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on. 57(12):3348-3354 Dec, 2010
Subject
Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Engineered Materials, Dielectrics and Plasmas
Gallium nitride
Monte Carlo methods
MODFETs
HEMTs
Transconductance
Numerical simulation
GaN
high-electron mobility transistors (HEMT)
high frequency
Monte Carlo
N-face
numerical simulation
Language
ISSN
0018-9383
1557-9646
Abstract
We compare the performance of GaN HEMT devices based on the established Ga-face technology and the emerging N-face technology. Starting from a state-of-the-art N-face device, we obtain the analogous Ga-face layout imposing the constraint of the same channel charge in both structures, and then, we simulate both the configurations with our full-band cellular Monte Carlo simulator, which includes the full details of the band structure and the phonon spectra. Moreover, we define a modeling approach based on gate-to-2-D electron gas distance and capacitance discussions, which allows a fair comparison between the N- and Ga-face technologies. Full direct current and RF simulations were performed and compared with available experimental data for the N-face device in order to calibrate the few adjustable simulator parameters. Our simulations indicate that N-face GaN HEMTs exhibit improved RF performance with respect to Ga-face devices. Furthermore, the use of an AlN layer in N-face devices results in a reduced alloy scattering and offers a strong back-barrier electron confinement to mitigate short-channel effects, thus improving the cutoff frequency for highly scaled devices.