Proceedings of the 14th European Microwave Integrated Circuits Conference Degradation of Ka band GaN Low-Noise Amplifier under High Input Power Stress

A 22-30 GHz gallium nitride (GaN) low-noise amplifier (LNA) with a noise Figure (NF) of 0.87-1.51 dB is presented in this work. This LNA was fabricated with 100 nm gate-length AlN/GaN on silicon (Si) microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) process. The linear gain is 14-17 dB with input/output return loss over 10 dB across the band. To investigate the robustness of this LNA, 1 Watt continuous wave (CW) at 27 GHz was stressed on the input port of LNA. The decrease of gain and increase of NF were found after stress. Experimental research and first-principles calculations were carried out to investigate the physical mechanism of theses degradations, which indicate that the dehydrogenation of VGaH3 complexes in GaN channel caused the decrease of gain and the creation of VAl-H4 in the aluminum nitride (AlN) barrier caused the increase of NF.