Abstract

This paper presents for the first time the monolithic integration of In0.53Ga0.47As PIN diodes and In0.53Ga0.47As/In0.52Al0.48As HFETs on one GaAs substrate. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first approach that these metamorphic devices are heterointegrated on a single GaAs wafer. Special attention was paid to the surface roughness of the layers which was monitored with an atomic force microscope during the processing. Taking advantage of this combined technology, metamorphic PIN diodes and HFETs were processed simultaneously and used to realize different mm-wave circuits on this wafer. The HFETs with a gate-length of 0.12 µm demonstrate an extrinsic transconductance of 772mS/mm and cut-off frequencies of fT = 137GHz and fmax = 212GHz. The fabricated SPDT (single-pole double-throw) switch has an insertion loss smaller than 2.5dB and an isolation larger than –21dB from 39GHz to 79GHz and the single-stage amplifier exhibits a gain of 6.5dB at 54GHz.