HETEROSTRUCTURE BARRIER VARACTOR SIMULATION USING AN INTEGRATED HYDRODYNAMIC DEVICE HARMONIC-BALANCE CIRCUIT ANALYSIS TECHNIQUE

Accurate and efficient simulations of the large-signal time-dependent behavior of GaAs/AlGaAs Heterostructure Barrier Varactor (HBV) frequen cy tripler circuits have been obtained. This is accomplished by combin ing a novel harmonic-balance circuit analysis technique with a physics -based hydrodynamic device simulator. The integrated HBV hydrodynamic device/harmonic-balance circuit simulator allows HBV multiplier circui ts to be co-designed from both a device and a circuit point of view. C omparisons are made with the experimental results of Choudhury et al. for GaAs/AlGaAs HBV frequency triplers operating near 200 GHz. These c omparisons illustrate the importance of representing active devices wi th physics-based numerical device models rather than analytical device models based on lumped quasi-static equivalent circuits.