High reliability non-hermetic 0.1 /spl mu/m GaAs pseudomorphic HEMT MMIC amplifiers

Abstract

High reliability performance of a Q-band low-noise MMIC amplifier fabricated using 0.1 /spl mu/m production AlGaAs/InGaAs/GaAs HEMT process technology is reported. Operating at an accelerated DC bias condition of Vds=4.2 V and Ids=150 mA/mm, two-stage balanced amplifiers were lifetested at three temperatures (T/sub ambient/=255/spl deg/C, T/sub ambient/=270/spl deg/C, and T/sub ambient/=285/spl deg/C) in air ambient. After stress, MMIC amplifiers were brought down to room temperature and small-signal microwave characteristics were measured. Failure time for each temperature was determined using /spl Delta/S21=-1.0 dB measured at room temperature as the failure criteria. The activation energy (Ea) is 1.7 eV, achieving a projected median-time-to-failure (MTF) of 6/spl times/10/sup 9/ hours at a 125/spl deg/C junction temperature. This is the state-of-art of 0.1 /spl mu/m HEMT reliability based on S21 failure criteria of MMIC amplifiers under DC stress at high junction temperature in air ambient. This result demonstrates a robust HEMT technology which is immune to the stress effects of high electric field under high temperature operation, and demonstrates the suitability of the HEMTs for non-hermetic commercial applications.