Browsing by Author "Zafar, Salahuddin"

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Open Access
AlGaN/GaN-Based laterally gated high-electron-mobility transistors with optimized linearity
(IEEE, 2021-02-01) Odabaşı, Oğuz; Yılmaz, Doğan; Aras, Erdem; Asan, Kübra Elif; Zafar, Salahuddin; Çankaya Akoğlu, Büşra; Bütün, Bayram; Özbay, Ekmel
In this work, highly linear AlGaN/GaN laterally gated (or buried gate) high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) are reported. The effect of gate dimensions on source-access resistance and the linearity of laterally gated devices are investigated experimentally in detail for the first time. Transistors with different gate dimensions and conventional planar devices are fabricated using two-step electron beam lithography (EBL). Current-voltage, source-access resistance, small-signal, and two-tone measurements are performed to evaluate the linearity of devices. Contrary to conventional planar HEMTs, the intrinsic transconductance of laterally gated devices monotonically increases with increasing gate voltage, showing a similar behavior as junction field-effect transistors (FETs). The source-access resistance shows a polynomial increase with the drain current, which can be reduced by decreasing the filling ratio of the buried gates. Through the optimization of these two competing factors, i.e., intrinsic transconductance and the source-access resistance, flat transconductance with high linearity is achieved experimentally. The laterally gated structure shows flat transconductance and small-signal power gain over a larger span of gate voltage that is 2.5 times higher than a planar device. Moreover, 6.9-dB improvement in output intercept point (OIP3)/P DC is achieved. This approach can be used to improve the linearity of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs at the device level.
Open Access
Analysis of HfO2 and ZrO2 as high-K dielectric for CMOS nano devices
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2022-05-16) Hasan, T.; Zafar, Salahuddin; Özbay, Ekmel; Kashif, A. U.
An analysis has been made on high-K dielectrics (HfO 2 and ZrO 2) for the CMOS process up to 14 nm FAB technology node. The aim is to study the reduction in gate leakage current for Nano-scale devices. High-K Dielectric having K ≥ 20 is beneficial for CMOS Nano-devices, reducing the gate leakage current when EOT ≤ 0.5 nm. MOS structure with high-K, i.e., HfO 2 and ZrO 2 , has been simulated in SILVACO T-CAD to consider as gate stack: metal/oxide/p-Si for the different FAB nodes; 45, 32, 22 & 14 nm. SiO 2 is considered a reference to optimize the MOS structure with high-K dielectric. As a result, 7–8 times the higher physical gate oxide layer is achieved compared to SiO 2 , which has a significant impact on minimizing the gate leakage current.
Open Access
Design and development of X-band GaN-based low-noise amplifiers
(2022-12) Zafar, Salahuddin
Gallium nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) technology emerged as a preferable candidate for high-power applications. GaN HEMTs on silicon carbide (SiC) substrate provide the best combination of speed and power due to high power density, escalated saturated carrier velocity, high efficiency, enhanced electrical breakdown, and superior thermal conductivity. Over the years, GaN technology also started to take its place in low-noise applications due to built-in power handling capability at the receive end of transceivers for compact designs and high linearity. For GaN-based low-noise amplifiers (LNAs), improving the noise figure (NF) and getting it close to other competitive technologies is always challenging. More-over, further improvement in the robustness of GaN-based LNAs in terms of survivability and reverse recovery time (RRT) is needed. For this purpose, NAN-OTAM’s 0.15 µm GaN on SiC HEMT process is used to realize LNAs, one with survivability as high as 42 dBm and the other having NF as low as 1.2 dB. Survivability is investigated in terms of gain compression and forward gate current, while RRT is explored in detail with respect to the RC time constant of transistor and trap phenomenon. In the LNA design, the significance of inductive source degenerated HEMT, and the role of stability networks towards NF improvement are discussed in detail. Furthermore, thermal simulations and infrared (IR) thermographic measurements of the LNA monolithic microwave integrated circuit are correlated to unveil the maximum channel temperature buried inside the two-dimensional electron gas of HEMT.
Open Access
Design and robustness improvement of high-performance LNA using 0.15 μm GaN technology for X-band applications
(John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2022-07) Zafar, Salahuddin; Çankaya Akoğlu, Büşra; Aras, Erdem; Yılmaz, Doğan; Nawaz, Muhammad İmran; Kashif, Ahsanullah; Özbay, Ekmel
In this paper, we present a highly robust GaN-based X-band low-noise amplifier (LNA) showing promising small-signal and noise performance as well as good linearity. The LNA is fabricated using in-house 0.15 μm AlGaN/GaN on a SiC HEMT process. Owing to the optimum choice of HEMT topologies and simultaneous matching technique, LNA achieves a noise figure better than 2 dB, output power at 1 dB gain compression higher than 19 dB, input and output reflection coefficients better than −9 and −11 dB, respectively. The small-signal gain of LNA is more than 19 dB for the whole band, and NF has a minimum of 1.74 dB at 10.2 GHz. LNA obtains an OIP3 up to 34.2 dBm and survives input power as high as 42 dBm. Survivability is investigated in terms of gain compression and forward gate current. Reverse recovery time (RRT), a crucial parameter for radar front-ends, is explored with respect to the RC time constant and trap phenomenon. The analysis shows that the significant contribution in RRT is due to traps while the RC time constant is in the nanoseconds range. Moreover, this study also addresses the requirement and choice of a DC gate feed resistor for the subsequent stages in a multi-stage design. The size of the designed LNA chip is 3 mm (Formula presented.) 1.2 mm only.
Open Access
Design of GaN-based X-band LNAs to achieve sub-1.2 dB noise figure
(Wiley, 2022-08-21) Zafar, Salahuddin; Aras, Erdem; Cankaya Akoglu, Busra; Tendurus, Gizem; Nawaz, Muhammad Imran; Kashif, Ahsanullah; Ozbay, Ekmel
GaAs and SiGe technologies take an edge over GaN-based devices in terms of better noise figure (NF). In this article, we present HEMT topologies and design techniques to achieve a sub-1.2 dB NF for a GaN-based X-band low-noise amplifier (LNA). This NF is comparable with state-of-the-art reported works in competitive GaAs and SiGe technologies. Moreover, this is the best reported NF in X-band using GaN technology to date. Two LNAs are fabricated using in-house 0.15 μm AlGaN/GaN on the SiC HEMT process. LNA-1 has inductive source degenerated (ISD) HEMTs at both stages, while LNA-2 has ISD HEMT at the first and common source at the second stage. The significance of ISD HEMT, for the first or subsequent stages in a multi-stage design, towards NF improvement is addressed. The criticality of stability networks towards NF contribution and its design is discussed in detail. Furthermore, even-mode stability of each HEMT after complete LNA design is assured using the S-probe method in Pathwave Advanced Design Systems.
Open Access
Eighty nine-watt cascaded multistage power amplifier using gallium nitride-on-silicon high electron mobility transistor for L-band radar applications
(The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2021-11) Hayat, K.; Zafar, Salahuddin; Mehmood, T.; Akoğlu, Büşra Çankaya; Özbay, Ekmel
This work presents a gallium nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistor (HEMT)–based cascaded multistage power amplifier (MPA) in class-AB for L-band radar applications. The purpose of this endeavour is to develop an MPA using GaN HEMT devices to achieve optimised parameters such as high gain, high power, better efficiency, and linearity in a compact size. In an MPA design with multiple stages, oscillations are common owing to unwanted high gain at the lower frequency range. To overcome this issue, we introduced interstage harmonic termination networks as a novel approach to suppress high gain at low frequencies, which are prone to oscillations. The proposed cascaded MPA provides the maximum radio-frequency output power of 89 W and a power gain of 52 dB with an associated power-added efficiency of 51%. Second and third harmonic levels are −32.5 and −37 dBc, respectively. Two-tone measurements are performed with a frequency separation of 10 MHz, and an intermodulation level of less than −33 dBc is achieved.
Open Access
GaN based LNA MMICs for X-band applications
(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2020) Zafar, Salahuddin; Osmanoğlu, Sinan; Öztürk, Mustafa; Çankaya, Büşra; Yılmaz, Doğan; Kashif, A. U.; Özbay, Ekmel
In this paper, we report two low noise broadband amplifiers based on ABMN's AlGaN/GaN on SiC HEMT technology for X-band applications. Two design topologies, a single-stage (LNA-1) and a two-stage (LNA-2), have been investigated. LNA-1 and the first stage of LNA-2 is based on common source (CS) with inductive source degeneration topology. LNA-1 has a flat gain response of ±1.4 dB gain variation with a gain greater than 8 dB for 9 V drain voltage and 100 mA/mm drain current. Input return loss better than 9.8 dB and output return loss better than 12.8 dB have been achieved. The simulated value of noise figure for this design is less than 1.4 dB. In LNA-2 design, a two-stage topology is implemented to enhance amplifier's gain. The simulated values for LNA-2 show a gain greater than 16.8 dB with ±2.9 dB gain variation. Input and output return loss values are better than 8.8 dB and 10 dB, respectively. The value of noise figure for this design is less than 1.7 dB in the desired frequency range. Both designs, having state-of-the art small dimensions, are suitable for their potential applications for space communications, Radar, satellite communications etc.
Open Access
GaN-on-SiC LNA for UHF and L-Band
(IEEE, 2019) Zafar, Salahuddin; Osmanoğlu, Sinan; Çankaya, Büşra; Kashif, A.; Özbay, Ekmel
In this paper, we report a broadband GaN HEMT LNA from 100 MHz to 2 GHz, using common source with inductive degeneration and RC feedback topology. Flat gain response of ±1.5 dB variation for 9 V drain voltage with 108 mA drain current bias is achieved. Noise characteristics for frequencies as low as 100 MHz have been explored for the first time for GaN-on-SiC technology. A gain greater than 8 dB with single stage, and promising values of input reflection coefficient (smaller than -8.9 dB) and output reflection coefficient (smaller than -7.1 dB) have been achieved, respectively. Minimum NF of 2.9 dB is achieved while an NF smaller than 5 dB is reported in the usable frequency range from 310 MHz to 2 GHz. Performance evaluation is also done for both low and high drain current and voltage values. In-house 0.15 μm GaN-on-SiC process is used to design this MMIC. The chip size for designed MMIC is 1.35 mm × 1.35 mm.
Open Access
Unveiling Tmax inside GaN HEMT based X-band low-noise amplifier by correlating thermal simulations and IR thermographic measurements
(IEEE, 2022-12-20) Zafar, Salahuddin; Durna, Yılmaz; Koçer, Hasan; Akoğlu, Büşra Çankaya; Aras, Yunus Erdem; Odabaşı, Oğuz; Bütün, Bayram; Özbay, Ekmel
This paper presents a method to reveal the channel temperature profile of high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) in a multi-stage monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC). The device used for this study is a two-stage X-band low-noise amplifier fabricated using 0.15 m GaN-on-SiC technology with 4x50 m and 4x75 m HEMTs at the first and the second stage, respectively. The surface temperature measured through infrared (IR) thermography has a diffraction-limited resolution. Moreover, it is impossible to measure sub-surface Tmax residing inside the two-dimensional electron gas of HEMT using IR thermographic measurements. Finite element analysis (FEA) thermal simulations are performed in this study to acquire the surface and sub-surface temperature profiles of the whole MMIC. IR measurements and FEA simulations are integrated through a correlation-based method verifying the accuracy of the FEA-based temperature profiles. This method leads to accurately finding the hotspots in the MMIC, thus revealing the Tmax of both stages. The correlation method using two filters approach to match the measurements and simulated temperature profiles of all the stages finds its application in MMICs’ high-temperature operating lifetime reliability tests.
Open Access
X-band cascode LNA with bias-invariant noise figure using 0.15 µm GaN-on-SiC technology
(IEEE, 2022-07-18) Nawaz, Muhammad Imran; Aras, Yunus Erdem; Zafar, Salahuddin; Akoğlu, Büşra Çankaya; Tendürüs, Gizem; Özbay, Ekmel
Cascode HEMTs exhibit better stability and broad bandwidths performance as compared with common source HEMTs. This paper presents the design of a single stage broadband low noise amplifier based upon 0.15 um GaN HEMT technology in the frequency range of 8 – 12 GHz. Cascode HEMT with inductive source degeneration is utilized. All the design work is done using PathWave Advanced Design System. The LNA provides 9.5 to 10.6 dB with input return loss better than 10 dB and output return loss better than 8 dB in the whole band. The noise figure of the amplifier is below 1.9 dB. The linearity parameters P1dB and OIP3 are greater than equal to 16 dBm and 28 dBm respectively within operating bandwidth. The noise figure of the amplifier is fairly constant over 30 mA to 60 mA bias currents and 9 V – 18 V operating bias voltage. This is a unique finding which is being reported for the first time to the best of authors' knowledge.