ON THE EFFECTS OF HOT-ELECTRONS ON THE DC AND RF CHARACTERISTICS OF LATTICE-MATCHED INALAS INGAAS/INP HEMTS/

This letter for the first time presents results of hot electron stress ing of InAlAs/InGaAs/InP high electron mobility transistors (HEMT's), High drain bias, room temperature stress cycles have been applied to 0 .3 mu m, SiN-passivated, lattice-matched devices, and the changes of t he de and rf (up to 50 GHz) characteristics have been studied. Both th e de and rf device gain degrade after stressing; the effect of the str ess on the unity current gain cutoff frequency f(T) is studied under d ifferent bias conditions. Results indicate that surface degradation ma y be responsible for the observed changes.