Analysis on the low-k benzo-cyclo-butene passivation of pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistors

• Published in: 2002 Conference on Optoelectronic and Microelectronic Materials and Devices. COMMAD 2002. Proceedings (Cat. No.02EX601) pp. 349 - 352
• Main Authors: Wook-Suk Sul, Hyo-Jong Han, Byoung-Ok Lim, Bok-Hyoung Lee, Sung-Dae Lee, Mi-Ra Kim, Sam-Dong Kim, Jin-Koo Rhee
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2002
• Subjects: Dielectric constant; Dielectric materials; Gallium arsenide; HEMTs; Millimeter wave technology; MODFETs; Passivation; PHEMTs; Radio frequency; Scanning electron microscopy
• DOI: 10.1109/COMMAD.2002.1237262
• ISBN: 0780375718; 9780780375710
• ISSN: 1097-2137

In pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistors (PHEMT's), surface passivation for the devices is very important for ensuring the DC and RF performances as well as the reliability. We performed the comparative study on the DC, RF and noise characteristics of the 0.1 /spl mu/m gate length PHEMT's passivated by either the conventional Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/ or the low dielectric constant benzo-cyclo-butene (BCB)layers. The noise performance of the BCB passivation for the PHEMT's was much superior to that of the Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/, whereas the DC and other RF properties were not significantly affected by the passivation materials.