Indium Phosphide Material Growth For Microwave And Millimeter Wave Monolithic Integrated Circuits

The InP material system has been somewhat slow to develop for electrical devices commercially due to the general complexity of the associated alloys. The majority of work presently completed has been with Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE). While this technology offers many advantages in terms of growth, it suffers one major limitation related to InP--an inability to use phosphorous in the material compounds. This has resulted in very little work being done with InP as an epitaxial layer, preferring to use InO.52A10.48As instead. The desire to fabricate a high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) withthis aluminum alloy has resulted in devices with less than spectacular performance. The fundamental difficulty has been the inability of the In0.52A10.48As to support the types of high voltages need for power applications. By using a growth technique with the capabilities for phosphorous compounds, Organometallic Chemical Vapor Deposition (OMCVD), a more comprehensive investigation can be made to identify the improvements to be gained by substituting InP as a large band gap material in place of In0.52A10.48As. ANTICIPATED BENEFITS: The benefits will be realized through lower cost components for use in various microwave and millimeter wave applications. The cost of MMIC's for automotive and communication applications will see dramatic reduction.