High microwave and noise performance of 0.17-μm AlGaN-GaN HEMTs on high-resistivity silicon substrates

AlGaN-GaN high-electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) based on high-resistivity silicon substrate with a 0.17-μm T-shape gate length are fabricated. The device exhibits a high drain current density of 550 mA/mm at V/sub GS/=1 V and V/sub DS/=10 V with an intrinsic transconductance (g/sub m/) of 215 mS/mm. A unity current gain cutoff frequency (f
_T
) of 46 GHz and a maximum oscillation frequency (f
_max
) of 92 GHz are measured at V/sub DS/=10 V and I/sub DS/=171 mA/mm. The radio-frequency microwave noise performance of the device is obtained at 10 GHz for different drain currents. At V/sub DS/=10 V and I/sub DS/=92 mA/mm, the device exhibits a minimum-noise figure (NF
_min
) of 1.1 dB and an associated gain (G/sub ass/) of 12 dB. To our knowledge, these results are the best f
_T
, f
_max
and microwave noise performance ever reported on GaN HEMT grown on Silicon substrate.