High reliability non-hermetic 0.1 μm GaAs pseudomorphic HEMT MMIC amplifiers

High reliability performance of a Q-band low-noise MMIC amplifier fabricated using 0.1 mum production AlGaAs/InGaAs/GaAs HEMT process technology is reported. Operating at an accelerated DC bias condition of Vds=4.2 V and Ids=150 mA/mm, two-stage balanced amplifiers were lifetested at three temperatures (T-ambient = 255degreesC, T-ambient = 270degreesC, and T-ambient = 285degreesC) in air ambient. After stress, MMIC amplifiers were brought down to room temperature and small-signal microwave characteristics were measured. Failure time for each temperature was determined using DeltaS21=-1.0 dB measured at room temperature as the failure criteria. The activation energy (Ea) is 1.7 eV, achieving a projected median-time-to-failure (MTF) of 6x10(9) hours at a 125degreesC junction temperature. This is the state-of-art of 0.1 mum HEMT reliability based on S21 failure criteria of MMIC amplifiers under DC stress at high junction temperature in air ambient. This result demonstrates a robust HEMT technology which is immune to the stress effects of high electric field under high temperature operation, and demonstrates the suitability of the HEMTs for non-hermetic commercial applications.