High performance N-polar GaN HEMTs with OIP3/Pdc ∼12dB at 10GHz

Abstract

X-band power performance of N-polar GaN HEMTs is reported, including 2-tone results at 10GHz that demonstrate an OIP3/PDC linearity figure of merit of 12dB at a drain voltage of 20V, utilizing tuning of fundamental, second and third harmonic terminations. Compared to available linearity results of GaN HEMTs at 10GHz, the device technology presented here demonstrates the best such ratio reported at 10GHz for any GaN HEMT to date. The N-polar HEMT device exhibits very low 3rd order intermodulation distortion as well as single-tone high power-added efficiency (PAE) of ∼65% with an associated power density of 3W/mm that scales favorably with a drain voltage of 15V. These results show the suitability of N-polar GaN HEMTs for high performance X-band transceiver systems.