The Indian scientific researchers have developed a high-calibre industry-standard model for aluminium gallium nitride (AlGaN/GaN) High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs) with mere design technique that can be utilized to make high-power Radio Frequency (RF) circuits acceding to its high breakdown voltage.
Amplifiers and switches that are used in wireless transmission and useful for space and defence applications are also included in radio frequency circuits.
As AlGaN/GaN HEMTs can also elongate the power level of solid-state microwave circuits by a factor of five to ten, resulting in an appreciable limitation in the overall chip size and cost, the standard developed can crucially narrow the development budget of the circuits and devices for transmitting high-frequency signals.
The technology is expeditiously attaining acceptance due to its high performance and efficiency. However, it has two eminent properties – high mobility and high-power performance. These features diminish the noise figure and complexity while designing Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs) (used in wireless transmission like mobile phones, base stations) while increasing the achievable bandwidth.
The technology of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs has been preferred for high-frequency and high-power applications like 5G, radars, base stations, satellite communications, etc. While designing wideband power amplifiers, a fully robust and accurate physics-based radio frequency (RF) GaN HEMT model is of prime importance.
The present research work team is led by Prof Yogesh Singh Chauhan of IIT Kanpur, who has developed and standardized a physics-based compact model for AlGaN/GaN HEMTs – the Advanced Spice Model for GaN-HEMTs (ASM-HEMT). The standard model for circuit design developed simplifies the design procedure for high-performance RF circuits and supports in automating the design efforts as well as brings down the overall development cost. Moreover, it can precisely envision the AlGaN/GaN HEMT's behaviour in circuit design.
The progress of the model comprised characterizing AlGaN/GaN HEMTs using state-of-the-art characterization systems integrated with a setup used for measuring the electronic characteristics like current, the capacitance of semiconductor devices, including high-frequency characteristics. This setup (consisting of a Keysight B1500 Semiconductor Device Analyzer, an AMCAD PIV system, a passive load-pull system from Maury Microwaves, a Keysight B1505 Power Device analyzer, all connected using a FormFactor probe station) was partially supported by 'Fund for Improvement of S&T Infrastructure (FIST)' and Technology Development Programme (TDP) schemes of Department of Science and Technology.
The measurements facility financially backed by FIST & TDP is being heavily used by ISRO, DRDO, and other companies to characterize the semiconductor devices for high-frequency applications.
The team of researchers is measuring the current, capacitance, and RF characteristics of the devices under test and uses parameter extraction tools to extract the parameters of the ASM-HEMT model for a given technology. However, once the model behaviour is in close accordance with the measured characteristics, the model is certified for practical applications.
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