Digital Oxide Deposition of SiO\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e Layers for III-Nitride Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Heterostructure Field-Effect Transistors

Abstract

We present a digital-oxide-deposition (DOD) technique to deposit high quality SiO2dielectric layers by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition using alternate pulses of silicon and oxygen precursors. The DOD procedure allows for a precise thickness control and results in extremely smooth insulating SiO2 layers. An insulating gate AlGaN∕GaNheterostructurefield-effect transistor(HFET) with 8nm thick DOD SiO2dielectric layer had a threshold voltage of −6V (only 1V higher than that of regular HFET), very low threshold voltage dispersion, and output continuous wave rf power of 15W∕mm at 55V drain bias