Pulsed Sputter Deposition (PSD) for Efficient Doping for GaN HEMT Contacts

Gallium nitride (GaN) represents a critical semiconductor technology for a number of defense and non-defense applications such as advanced radar systems, missile guidance, satellite communications, GPS, surveillance, wireless base stations, 5G, and much more. The HEMT, or high electron mobility transistor, is the most basic electronic device from which these GaN-based technologies are built. In order to maximize device performance, the HEMT manufacturing process relies on an expensive molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) step during the preparation of the contacts. During this effort, Kyma will work with Raytheon to replace the expensive MBE process with one based on a 3x lower cost and higher performing technology, pulsed sputter deposition (PSD). PSD films will be grown on live HEMT epiwafers provided by Raytheon and the process will be optimized for process insertion.