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Zero-Bias Mixer Based on AlGaN/GaN Lateral

Field-Effect Diodes for High-Temperature
Wireless Sensor and RFID Applications
King-Yuen Wong, Member, IEEE, Wanjun Chen, Qi Zhou, and Kevin J. Chen, Senior Member, IEEE

AbstractIn this paper, a zero-bias mixer using a lateral fieldeffect diode fabricated on standard GaN-on-Si AlGaN/GaN highelectron-mobility-transistor wafers is demonstrated. The diode
features strong nonlinearity near zero bias, enabled by a
threshold-voltage modulation using a fluorine-plasma-treatment
technique. The maximum change in conductance was adjusted to
0 V, leading to optimal conversion loss (CL) of the mixer at zero
bias and eliminating the need for any dc supplies. The mixer is
characterized from room temperature (RT) to 250 C. At 2.5 GHz
and at RT, the CL and third-order intermodulation intercept point
are 12.9 dB and 17.64 dBm, respectively. The operation of the
proposed diode is modeled by a physical equivalent circuit, with
the element values extracted from the measured S-parameters.
The voltage-biasing dependence of the CL can be explained by
the model. The high-temperature operation of the mixer shows
that the proposed mixer can perform well in high-temperature and
ultralow-power applications.
Index TermsAlGaN/GaN, field-effect diode (FED), hightemperature wireless sensor, thermal factors and integration
process, zero-bias mixer.

I. I NTRODUCTION

N next-generation wireless base stations and military applications, the AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT), with high breakdown voltage, high-frequency
operation, and excellent microwave noise performance, is an
emerging device technology that exhibits great potential for
high-power and low-noise applications [1][3]. Owing to the
wide energy bandgap of gallium nitride and related materials,
AlGaN/GaN HEMTs are advantageous to the conventional
silicon and GaAs devices for high-temperature applications because of the lower intrinsic carrier concentrations. A maximum
operational temperature at 1000 C [4] and stable operation at
350 C for 500 h have been reported [5] in discrete InAlN/GaN
and AlGaN/GaN HEMTs, respectively. Digital integrated cirManuscript received November 11, 2008; revised June 30, 2009. First
published October 30, 2009; current version published November 20, 2009.
This work was supported by Hong Kong RGC under GRF 611706 and
CA07/08.EG02. The review of this paper was arranged by Editor M. Anwar.
K.-Y. Wong, Q. Zhou, and K. J. Chen are with the Department of Electronic
and Computer Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong (e-mail: kingyuen@ust.hk; eekjchen@ust.hk).
W. Chen is with the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering,
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong,
and also with the State Key Laboratory of Electronic Thin Films and Integrated
Devices, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu
610054, China.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TED.2009.2032279

cuits made of integrated enhancement-/depletion-mode AlGaN/

GaN HEMTs have been shown to deliver stable operation at
375 C [6]. The capability of delivering stable high-temperature
operation together with GaNs strong chemical inertness make
GaN-based devices particularly attractive for sensor and identification systems operating in harsh environment such as high
temperature [7]. Monolithic integration of sensing components
and radio-frequency (RF) front-end functional blocks can potentially lead to compact system-on-chip solutions for hightemperature wireless sensors and RF identification (RFID)
systems are finding increasing demand in industrial control,
automotive, aviation systems, and oil well-logging. In order to
avoid the use of battery or prolong the battery lifetime in the
high-temperature environment, the electrical currents induced
in the antenna by the incoming radio signals can be utilized
to power up the integrated circuit and transmit the response
signals. In such systems, key functional blocks with low or zero
dc bias are desirable to obtain low power consumption.
As a critical part in RF transceiver, the mixer is considered
as one of the most power-consuming components. Various
techniques such as dual-gate AlGaN/GaN HEMT and resistive
HEMT mixers have been reported [8][11]. However, these
techniques are not suitable for ultralow-power applications due
to the nonnegligible dc power consumption of the HEMT.
Recently, taking advantage of the fluorine-plasma ionimplantation (or treatment) technique [13], we developed an
AlGaN/GaN HEMT-compatible lateral field-effect rectifier that
features low forward turn-on voltage, low on-resistance, and
high reverse breakdown [14][15]. The low forward turn-on
voltage provides strong indication that the field-effect diode
(FED) could be used for zero-bias mixer because of the diodes
strong nonlinearity near zero bias.
In this paper, we focus on the zero-bias-mixer application
of lateral FED (L-FED). The device process was optimized to
provide the strongest nonlinearity near zero bias. The mixer
diode does not require any dc biases, and there is zero dc power
consumption. Based on extensive small-signal S-parameter
measurement, the bias-dependent equivalent resistance and capacitance of the diode were extracted. Detailed mixer characterizations were carried out at 2.5 GHz from room temperature
(RT) up to 250 C, at which a conversion loss (CL) of 17 dB and
third-order intermodulation intercept point (IIP3 ) of 18 dBm
could be achieved.
This paper is organized as follows. In Section II, the operating principle and fabrication procedures of the L-FED are

0018-9383/$26.00 2009 IEEE

WONG et al.: ZERO-BIAS MIXER BASED ON AlGaN/GaN LATERAL FIELD-EFFECT DIODES

Fig. 1.

Cross section of the proposed zero-bias-mixer diode.

given. Section III presents the detailed characterizations of

the diode, including small-signal measurements and parameter extraction of the diodes equivalent circuit. The proposed
diode has been used in the mixer design for high-temperature
operation (up to 250 C). The measured performances of the
zero-bias mixer are described in Section IV.
II. O PERATING P RINCIPLE AND FABRICATION OF
AlGaN/GaN H EMT-C OMPATIABLE FED
FOR Z ERO -B IAS M IXERS
The detailed description of the operating principle of the
AlGaN/GaN HEMT-compatible L-FED has been provided in
[14]. Fig. 1 shows the cross section of the FED on a standard
AlGaN/GaN HEMT structure grown on a silicon substrate.
The diode features a Schottky gate-controlled 2-D electron-gas
(2DEG) channel that sits between two ohmic contacts which are
defined as anode (A) and cathode (C). The Schottky contact is
electrically shorted to the anode. By merging the Schottky gate
and anode ohmic contact, the forward-on (VFon ) voltage was
determined by the voltage of the channel instead of the Schottky
barrier [14]. VFon was adjusted to a slight positive value by
our previously developed fluorine-plasma-treatment technique
(CF4 plasma treatment) [13]. L and LD represent the length of
the Schottky contact region (with CF4 plasma treatment) and
the drift region of the diode, respectively.
The sample used in this paper was a commercially available Al0.26 Ga0.74 N/GaN HEMT wafer grown by metalorganic
chemical vapor deposition on 4-in silicon substrate. The epitaxial structure includes a GaN buffer, a thin AlN interface
enhancement layer, an 18-nm undoped AlGaN barrier, and a
2-nm GaN cap layer. The starting wafer featured a sheet resistance of 330 /square, 2DEG mobility of 1800 cm2 /V s and
a pinch-off voltage of 2.1 V.
The fabrication of the diode commenced with mesa isolation,
which was carried out by inductively coupled plasma reactive
ion etching (ICP-RIE). The ohmic contacts were formed simultaneously by e-beam deposition of Ti/Al/Ni/Au (20 nm/
150 nm/50 nm/80 nm) and subsequent rapid thermal annealing
at 850 C for 30 s. The specific ohmic contact resistance
was 0.63 mm measured by the standard transfer-length
method. Then, the Schottky contact region was defined by photolithography. Before the Schottky metal deposition by e-beam
evaporation, the sample was exposed to CF4 plasma in a RIE

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Fig. 2. SEM image of the proposed diode.

chamber with an RF power of 130 W for 140 s. The negatively

charged fluorine ions effectively depleted the 2DEG channel
and shifted the threshold voltage toward positive value. Finally,
the self-aligned Schottky contacts were deposited by e-beam
evaporation of Ni/Au and liftoff. After the Schottky metal
deposition, the sample was annealed at 400 C for 10 min to
repair the plasma-induced damages.
The micrograph of a fabricated diode is shown in Fig. 2. The
lengths of the Schottky contact region L and the drift region LD
were 1.25 and 5 m, respectively. The width of the electrode
was 50 m. The device layout was designed for both dc and
high-frequency testing, with two diodes connected in parallel.
III. D IODE C HARACTERISTICS
A. DC Measurements
The dc IV characteristics of the diode are measured using
HP4142B semiconductor parameter analyzer, and the results
are shown in Fig. 3(a). The dynamic conductance (Gd ) and its
derivative (Gd ) against the voltage are also shown in Fig. 3(b).
The forward current at a forward voltage (VF ) of 3 V is
358 mA/mm at RT and decreases to 161 mA/mm at 250 C.
In addition, the on-resistance (RON,sp ) is 0.42 m cm2 at
RT and increases to 0.98 m cm2 at 250 C. The turn-on
knee voltages (Vk ) at a 1-mA/mm forward current was 50 mV
at RT. Vk exhibited very little temperature dependence as the
temperature is raised to 250 C. At zero bias, Gd , the dominant
factor in determining the diode mixers conversion efficiency
[16], maintains a value larger than 101 mS V1 /mm at RT
and reaches the peak at 250 C, suggesting good conversion
efficiency within this wide temperature range. Compared to
the rectifier reported in our previous work [14], the plasmatreatment time is reduced from 150 to 140 s to achieve a
smaller Vk that lead to higher Gd at zero bias. Although the
diode fabricated in this paper features higher reverse leakage
current, no adverse effects are generated for zero-bias-mixer
application. The reverse current is less than 10 mA/mm at a
reverse bias of 100 V.
B. High-Frequency Small-Signal Measurements and
Parameter Extractions
The electrical behavior of the proposed diode can be modeled
by the equivalent circuit model shown in Fig. 4(a). Cj (V ) refers

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Fig. 5. Extracted (a) resistances and capacitances, and (b) transconductance

and the derivative of the transconductance of the parallel equivalent circuit as a
function of the forward voltage at 2.4 GHz.

Fig. 3. Measured (a) currentvoltage curve and (b) transconductance and

the derivative of the transconductance of the proposed diode at different
temperatures.

Fig. 4. Equivalent circuits of the proposed diode. (a) Detailed equivalent

circuit. (b) Equivalent-circuit model.

to the capacitance between the Schottky contact and the 2DEG

channel. Rch (V ) represents the channel resistance. Both are
modulated by the bias voltage. Cs accounts for the sidewall
capacitance, Rdrift is the resistance in the drift region between
cathode and anode, Rm represents the series metal resistance
of the electrode, Rc is the ohmic contact resistance, and Lm

accounts for the parasitic inductance of the metal electrodes.

In order to simplify the circuit analysis, the complicated highorder equivalent circuit shown in Fig. 4(a) can be transformed to
the equivalent circuit model as shown in Fig. 4(b) for parameter
extraction and performance evaluation. Rch , Rc , Cj , and CS
can be transformed to series-connected equivalent Re and Ce or
parallel-connected equivalent Rp and Cp to analyze the diodes
high-frequency characteristics in the context of zero-bias-mixer
application [17][19].
The on-wafer RF characteristics of the fabricated diode were
measured from 100 MHz to 39.1 GHz at a signal power level of
0 dBm with an Agilent 8722ES network analyzer and Cascade
microwave probe. The dc voltage was applied from 5 to 3 V
through the bias tee.
The element parameters of the series equivalent circuit were
extracted from the measured S-parameters. The S-parameters
were converted to Y -parameters. Then, the Y -parameters of
the open pad were measured and subtracted from the diodes
Y -parameters in a deembedding procedure. The deembedded
Y -parameters were then transformed to ABCD matrix for parameter extraction. The diode impedance (Zd ) was equivalent
to the B entry of the ABCD matrix. Referring to Fig. 4(b),
real(Zd ) was equivalent to the sum of Re (V ) and Rs . The
effective capacitance and series inductance of the diode were
extracted from the frequency dependence of the imaginary part
of the B entry of the ABCD matrix using


1
j Ls
= imag(B).
(1)
Ce
Fig. 5(a) shows the extracted effective Rp and Cp as a
function of bias at 2.4 GHz. Rp decreases from 10.86 k to

WONG et al.: ZERO-BIAS MIXER BASED ON AlGaN/GaN LATERAL FIELD-EFFECT DIODES

Fig. 6.

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Measurement setup of the CL and intermodulation.

64 as the bias increases from 2 to +2 V. At zero bias,

Rp is 271 . As shown in Fig. 5(b), around zero bias, the
equivalent dynamic conductance of the diode, Gd,e , exhibits
strong nonlinearity, as reflected in the peak position of Gd,e .
The Gd,e extracted at 2.4 GHz is consistent with that measured
at dc, as shown in Fig. 3(b). The extracted effective Cp of the
diode is shown to increase and then decrease gradually as the
channel is being turned on by the increasing bias. The increase
is a straightforward result of the channel turn-on. The decrease,
however, is a result of the distributed behavior of the channel.
As the channel is fully turned on and its resistance decreases
rapidly, the channel resistance provides a low-impedance path
compared to the junction capacitance, which is partially bypassed at higher forward bias.

Fig. 7. Frequency spectrum of the mixer operating without dc biasing at

fLO = 2.4 GHz with 10 dBm and fRF = 2.5 GHz with 4.7 dBm at
250 C.

IV. S INGLE -E NDED Z ERO -B IAS D IODE M IXER FOR

H IGH -T EMPERATURE A PPLICATIONS
Because of the strong nonlinearity near zero bias, the L-FED
is used to implement a zero-bias single-ended mixer for hightemperature applications. The down-conversion mixing measurement was carried out with a local-oscillator (LO) frequency
(fLO ) of 2.4 GHz and the RF (fRF ) of 2.5 GHz. The measurement setup for the mixer is shown in Fig. 6. The RF
and LO inputs were combined in a directional coupler, which
superimposed the two input signals to drive the diode. The dc
bias, although not required in the zero-bias-mixer operation,
could be applied to the diode through a bias tee to evaluate the
diode design. A manual stub tuner was used at the input port
for matching the input impedance (174-j113 ) at 2.5 GHz.
The intermediate frequency (IF) output (with an impedance of
370-j17 ) power at fIF = 100 MHz was measured by an Agilent E4440A spectrum analyzer (with a 50- impedance). The
cable losses are calibrated and deembedded. To evaluate the
mixers high-temperature performance, the diode was placed
on a Signatone high-temperature and high-frequency probe
station equipped with a thermal chuck whose temperature was
controlled by a temperature controller. The high-temperature
GGB Industries Picoprobe groundsignalground probes were
used to probe the diode chip. The CL versus LO power and
RF power, the (IIP3 ) and bias dependence of the CL were
measured from RT to 250 C. The output frequency spectrum
of the mixer operating without dc bias at a LO power of 10 dBm
and RF power with 4.7 dBm at 250 C is shown in
Fig. 7. The IF output signal at 100 MHz yields a power of
22.1 dBm. The results show that the proposed diode fabricated by the CF4 -plasma-treatment technique maintained an
excellent mixer performance at temperature as high as 250 C.

Fig. 8. CL of mixer as a function of LO power at fLO = 2.4 GHz, fRF =

2.5 GHz with 5 dBm, and fIF = 100 MHz at different temperatures.

Fig. 9. CL of mixer as a function temperature at fLO = 2.4 GHz, fRF =

2.5 GHz with 5 dBm, and fIF = 100 MHz at different LO power.

The dependences of the CL on the LO power level (PLO )

in the zero-bias condition at different temperatures are shown
in Fig. 8. The RF power level (PRF ) was 5 dBm. The CL
shows the typical decreasing trend as the LO input power is
increasing. The mixers CL increases as the temperature rises.
At PLO = 10 dBm, the CL increases 4.35 dB or 32% from
RT to 250 C, due to the Gd decreasing at higher temperature,
as shown in Fig. 3(b). The temperature dependences of CL at
different LO power levels are shown in Fig. 9. The rate of CLs
increase is higher as the temperature rises, consistent with that

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Fig. 10. IF power and CL of the mixer as a function of RF power at fRF =

2.5 GHz, fLO = 2.4 GHz with 10 dBm, and fIF = 100 MHz at different
temperatures.

Fig. 12. CL of mixer as a function of forward-biasing voltage at fLO =

2.4 GHz with 10 dBm, fRF = 2.5 GHz with 5 dBm, and fIF = 100 MHz at
different temperatures.

Fig. 13.

Measurement setup of the noise figure.

Fig. 11. Two-tone measurement of the mixer at fRF(1,2) =

2.495, 2.505 GHz and fIF(1,2) = 95, 105 MHz, fIM3(1,2) = 85, 115 MHz,
and fLO = 2.4 GHz at different temperatures. By extrapolation of the IF and
IM3 signals, an IIP3 of 17.64 dBm was achieved.

predicted from the temperature dependence of the nonlinear

transconductance of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs [20].
The output IF power as a function of the input RF power
PRF is shown in Fig. 10. The inset shows the corresponding CL
versus PRF characteristics. The PLO level was set at 10 dBm.
PIF increases linearly with PRF from 35 to 8.5 dBm. The
compression of the CL was only 0.3 dBm, indicating a wide
dynamic range for the mixer based on the L-FED.
The linearity of the mixer was also investigated using a twotone measurement setup with two equally powered RF signals
of 10 MHz apart, and the results are shown in Fig. 11. The
IIP3 was obtained by extrapolation of the IF and the third-order
intermodulation (IM3 ) power curves. IIP3 is 17.64 dBm with
a LO input power of 10 dBm, resulting in a quality factor of
Q (IIP3 ) = IIP3 /PLO of 7.64 dB [21].
The CL as a function of bias voltage (Vbias ) at fLO =
2.4 GHz with PLO = 10 dBm, fRF = 2.5 GHz with PRF =
5 dBm and fIF = 100 MHz at different temperatures is shown
in Fig. 12. It is clear that the CL is the lowest around zero-bias
point, providing strong evidence of the suitability of using the
L-FED for zero-bias mixer applications.
The noise performance of the mixer was measured using an
Agilent N8975A noise-figure (NF) analyzer and an N4002A

Fig. 14. Noise figure of the mixer as a function of temperature. LO power

level is at 10 dBm at fLO = 2.4 GHz and fIF = 100 MHz.

noise source, as shown in Fig. 13. The temperature dependence

of the NF at a LO power level of 10 dBm at fLO = 2.4 GHz
and an IF frequency fIF = 100 MHz are shown in Fig. 14.
The double-sideband NF is 16.35 dB at RT and increases to
18.7 dB at 250 C. The rate of change in the noise figure with
temperature is similar to that in the CL and is attributed to the
rise of thermal noise [22].
Table I summarizes the performance of the mixer presented
in this paper and those reported earlier in AlGaN/GaN [9][11]
and GaAs [23, 24] technologies. Compared to the resistive mixers on AlGaN/GaN, the proposed mixer operating at the lowest
PLO exhibits excellent linearity and good noise performance.
Although the performance of the AlGaN/GaN dual-gate mixer
is excellent, it requires dc bias and features significant dc power
consumption. Compared to the mixer fabricated on GaAs [24],

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TABLE I
S UMMARY OF M EASURED M IXER P ERFORMANCES IN T HIS PAPER AND P REVIOUS R EPORTS [9][11], [23], [24]

the AlGaN/GaN zero-bias diode mixer exhibits wider dynamic

range, higher power-handling capability, and better linearity.
V. C ONCLUSION
A zero-bias single-ended mixer using an L-FED fabricated
on standard GaN-on-Si AlGaN/GaN HEMT wafers has been
demonstrated and characterized for high-temperature operation up to 250 C. The proposed diode takes advantage of
the robust tunability in the forward-on voltage enabled by a
CF4 -plasma-treatment technique. The desired nonlinearity for
mixer operation is the strongest near zero bias, leading to
excellent performance of AlGaN/GaN zero-bias mixers. The
voltage-controlled effective resistance and capacitance of the
diode were extracted and explained by a physical equivalent circuit model. The zero-bias mixer implemented by the
L-FED exhibits zero dc power consumption, low CL, excellent
linearity, and high power-handling capability. In addition, the
good circuit performance has been achieved up to 250 C, a
temperature at which the mainstream silicon CMOS devices
stop functioning. The GaN-based zero-bias mixer demonstrated
in this paper is expected to provide enabling building blocks for
high-temperature wireless sensor and RFID applications.
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King-Yuen Wong (S03M09) received the B.Eng.

(with first-class honors) and M.Phil. degrees in
electronic and information engineering from The
Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon,
Hong Kong, in 2002 and 2005, respectively, and the
Ph.D. degree in electronic and computer engineering
from The Hong Kong University of Science and
Technology, Kowloon, in 2009. During the Ph.D.
degree study, he was involved in the GaN semiconductor power and wireless devices, smart power ICs,
MMICs, and GaN-based MEMs.
In 2009, he joined as a Principal Engineer with the R&D Division, Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) Limited, Hsinchu, Taiwan,
where he worked on advanced CMOS technology.
Dr. Wong was the recipient of the ISPSD09 Charitat Award for the Best
Student Paper in the 21st International Symposium on Power Semiconductor
Devices and ICs in 2009.

Wanjun Chen was born in Chongqing, China, in

1978. He received the Ph.D. degree in microelectronics and solid-state electronics from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
(UESTC), Chengdu, China, in 2007.
In December 2007, he was an Associate Research Postdoctor with The Hong Kong University
of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
In March 2008, he joined the State Key Laboratory
of Electronic Thin Films and Integrated Devices,
UESTC, where he is currently a Lecturer. He is
currently also with the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering,
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His current research
interests include power semiconductor devices based on silicon material and
wide bandgap semiconductor materials, smart power ICs, and power management. He has published more than 30 papers in international conferences and
journals.

Qi Zhou was born in Yunnan, China, in 1981. He

received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Department of Electronics Engineering, Xidian University,
Xian, China, in 2004 and 2007, respectively. He is
currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in the
area of GaN-based microwave device and circuits
with the Department of Electronic and Computer
Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science
and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
From 2007 to 2008, he was an Engineer with
Mobi Antenna Technologies Corporation, Shenzhen,
China, where he was working on microwave circuits and devices.

Kevin J. Chen (M96SM06) received the B.S.

degree from the Department of Electronics, Peking
University, Beijing, China, in 1988 and the Ph.D.
degree from the University of Maryland, College
Park, in 1993.
From January 1994 to December 1995, he was
a Research Fellow with NTT LSI Laboratories,
Atsugi, Japan, where he was engaged in the research
and development of resonant-tunneling devices and
heterojunction FETs for high-speed signal processing and communication systems. From 1996 to 1998,
he was an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electronic Engineering,
City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, where he carried out
research on high-speed device and circuit simulations. He then joined the
Wireless Semiconductor Division, Agilent Technologies, Inc., Santa Clara, CA,
where he worked on enhancement-mode PHEMT RF power amplifiers used
in dual-band GSM/DCS wireless handsets. His work at Agilent covered RF
characterization and modeling of microwave transistors, RF IC, and package
design. In 2000, he joined the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon,
where he is currently an Associate Professor and his group has carried out
research on III-nitride device technologies, III-nitride- and silicon-based microelectromechanical systems, silicon-based RF/microwave passive components
and interconnects, RF packing technology, and microwave filter design. He
has authored or coauthored over 200 publications in international journals and
conference proceedings. His current research interests include GaN microwave
devices, GaN power electronics, and integrated microsensors.
Dr. Chen has been a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Electron Devices
Society since 2008.