Physics to Circuit Analysis of GaN RF Integrated Circuits versus GaAs and Silicon

Abstract

The migration of radio-frequency (RF) integrated-circuit platforms from silicon to GaAs and now to gallium nitride is derived here from first principles. The hexagonal non-centrosymmetric GaN lattice admits a macroscopic polarization; elasticity and the piezoelectric tensor fix the bound sheet charge at an AlGaN/GaN interface, and Poisson's equation with triangular-well quantisation yields a degenerate quasi-two-dimensional channel of ~10^13 cm^-2 with no doping. Energy-momentum conservation for pair creation and phonon-limited energy relaxation set the breakdown field (3.3 MV/cm) and saturation velocity (2.5 x 10^7 cm/s), which combine into geometry-free limits V_brf_T = E_cv_sat/(2pi) and R_on^sp = 4V_br^2/(muepsilonE_c^3). These limits are mapped onto the low-noise amplifier, power amplifier, and switch/phase-shifter functions of a transmit/receive front end and quantified by a MATLAB device-physics model comparing GaN, GaAs, and Si up to 90 GHz. The purpose of this framework and its simulations is to identify which material platform offers the best performance at millimeter-wave frequency signals.