Progressive Schottky junction reaction induced degradation in Pt-sunken gate InP HEMT MMICs for high reliability applications

Reliability performance of 0.1-µm Pt-sunken gate InP HEMT MMICs on 4-inch InP substrates was evaluated under elevated temperature lifetesting. The primary degradation mechanism was observed to be the progressive Schottky junction reaction with the Schottky barrier InAlAs and the InGaAs channel. Despite the progressive Schottky junction reaction with the InAlAs and InGaAs materials, the lifetest at T ambient of 280 °C projects the median-time-to-failure exceeding 1×106 hours at T channel of 125 °C. This result indicates that the promising initial reliability performance was achieved on Pt-sunken gate InP HEMT MMICs on 4-inch InP substrates.