(Invited) GaN High Power Devices and Their Applications

Wideband gap semiconductors, such as GaN and SiC, are called as next generation compound semiconductor platform. In material aspect, GaN has wideband gap energy(Eg=3.4eV), excellent electron transport properties, including good mobility, and high saturated drift velocity. So, GaN-based HEMT devices are attractive candidates for high-power amplifiers for communication and radar systems, and high power electronic switching devices for high efficient energy conversion systems.^[1-5]

We started the R&D of GaN technologies in 2010, and the progress of GaN RF device and power amplifier technologies will be presented today. Especially, I’d like to mention about recent demonstration of GaN power HEMTs developed using the ETRI’s proprietary 4-inch GaN full process for S-band and X-band ship radar systems. We are developing high power GaN devices technologies using two platforms. One is a GaN-on-Si for cost-effective power electronic device solutions and the other a GaN-on-SiC for performance-oriented power amplifier device solutions. But my presentation will be focused on the high power amplifier devices technologies and recent radar demonstration results.

A 200W solid state power amplifier (SSPA) was developed using ETRI’s 100W GaN transistors and mounted it on the S-band ship radar system. We tested and successfully got good radar images. To evaluate our device performance, we made and installed two kinds of high power SSPA modules using ETRI’s and Cree’s commercial GaN HEMTs products, respectively. Using these modules, we performed comparative study on the radar images each other. This is the first demonstration of SSPA ship radar in Korea. Test results were almost same and will be presented in this conference.

References:

1. Millan, J. “Wide band-gap power semiconductor devices”, IET Circuits Devices Syst., Vol.1(5), pp. 372–379(2007).

2. Jae Kyoung Mun, RF Integrated Circuit Technology Workshop 2011, pp. 483-495.

3. Jae Kyoung Mun et. al.,“Current Status of GaN Technologies in ETRI”, AWAD 2012.

4. Jae Kyoung Mun, “Current Status of S-/X-/Ku- Band GaN Transistors in ETRI”, 6th Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Components Workshop for Military Applications(2012)

5. Jae Kyoung Mun et. al.,“Current Status of GaN Power Electronic Device Technologies in ETRI”, ICAE 2013.

6. Youngrak Park et al, ELECTRONICS LETTERS, Vol. 50 No. 16, pp. 1164–1165(2014)