Comparative study on noise characteristics of As and Sb-based high electron mobility transistors

We study comparatively the RF and the noise characteristics for the In0.7Ga0.3As, InAs/AlSb and InSb high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) by using the quantum corrected Monte Carlo (QC-MC) simulation. The increase in the current fluctuation <<mml:msubsup>Ids2</mml:msubsup>> with V-ds is caused by the increase in the electron velocity variance <mml:msubsup>sigma v2</mml:msubsup> (i.e., the electron heating); this indicates clearly that the low V-ds operation is essential to lowering <<mml:msubsup>Ids2</mml:msubsup>>. The smaller electron effective m* results in the larger <mml:msubsup>sigma v2</mml:msubsup> and thus the larger <<mml:msubsup>Ids2</mml:msubsup>>, yet it allows the low V-ds operation through the higher . The InSb HEMT with the channel of the smallest m* overcomes the inherent nature of the larger <<mml:msubsup>Ids2</mml:msubsup>> through the ability of the lower V-ds operation along with the larger g(m). Eventually, the InSb HEMT shows the smallest minimum noise figure NFmin of 0.31dB with the associated gain G(ass) of 12.4dB at 100GHz and the highest cutoff frequency f(T) of 1.8THz at V-ds of 0.2V. These results indicate the potential of the InSb HEMT for the ultra-low power, ultra-high frequency, and the ultra-low noise transistor.