Power and Linearity Characteristics of GaN MISFETs on Sapphire Substrate

The improvement of device performance arising from the adoption of a MIS gate structure in GaN field-effect transistor (FET) is presented. GaN MISFET/MESFET devices were fabricated on sapphire substrate with and without the insertion of a thin SiN layer on device surface. The MISFET device showed improved device characteristic due to significant reduction in device gate leakage with respect to the standard MESFET structure. Measured power and linearity performance showed promising results. Under single-tone testing at 4 GHz, device yielded saturated output power 6.2 W/mm with 55% peak power added efficiency. When tested with two-tone signal device maintained a carrier to third order intermodulation ratio of 30 dBc up to power levels of 1.8 W/mm with 40% power added efficiency.