Engineering Sciences, Chemical Sciences
Title : | C-band Gallium Nitride (GaN)-based RF transistor on SiC |
Area of research : | Engineering Sciences, Chemical Sciences |
Focus area : | Development of RF transistors |
Principal Investigator : | Prof. Digbijoy Neelim Nath, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore |
Timeline Start Year : | 2019 |
Contact info : | digbijoy@iisc.ac.in ; sraghavan@iisc.ac.in |
Details
Executive Summary : | The project seeks to demonstrate and develop C-band Gallium Nitride RF transistors (on SiC substrate) that deliver 5 W of absolute power in packaged form. The various processes associated with the realization of indigenous III-nitride RF technology will be developed including material growth and design strategies for RF power amplifier topologies. An alloy of GaN (In, Al, Ga)-N, will be explored as well, as a channel of HEMT to investigate its supposed superior transport properties which may lead to beyond state-of-art performance. GaN transistor epi-layers will be grown on SiC using in-house MOCVD reactor at CeNSE. Currently, AlGaN/GaN HEMTs on silicon substrate are routinely growth in this reactor with state-of-art electron mobility, charge density and breakdown. Device process flow will be setup especially for deep sub-micron technology, optimizing SiN passivation, e-beam gate stack/gate profile, and subsequently field-plates and gate-recess, if required. Other critical processes such as Ohmic contact, isolation etch, annealing, etc. have been optimized and are routinely done for enabling high power transistors at CeNSE for DC switching. RF measurement and small-signal parameter extraction setup will be fine tuned o Possible power amplifier topologies with the fabricated RF devices will be explored. There’s a rapid market penetration of GaN RF HEMTs for mobile base stations, upcoming 5G technology, radar for surveillance/strategic needs/SATCOM and remote sensing. However, this critical technology is still at an early stage in India due to which, RF GaN devices are currently imported from abroad. There is a volume restriction in its import (due to its strategic nature) which limits India’s capability in high-power RF applications. Thus, it is of utmost importance to enable indigenous GaN RF technology in India for strategic/space/commercial requirements and to developed manpower skilled in this area of technology. With the development of C-band GaN devices, higher bands such as Ku/Ka-bands can be developed which will find widespread uses in the defense, space and 5G technologies. |
Co-PI: | Dr Srinivasan Raghavan,
Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore |
Total Budget (INR): | 1,48,06,880 |
Publications : | 3 |
Organizations involved