The last six years has seen the emergence and rapid development of a new type of field effect transistor, the High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT), which offers improved performance in both digital and analogue circuits compared with circuits incorporating either MEtal Semiconductor (MES) or Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) FETs. A new physically-based analytic model for HEMTs, which predicts the DC and RF electrical performance from the material and structural parameters of the device, is presented. The efficacy of the model is demonstrated with comparisons between simulated and measured device characteristics, at DC and microwave frequencies. The good agreement with experiment obtained with the model indicates that velocity overshoot effects are considerably less important in HEMTs than has been widely assumed, and that the electron transit velocity in submicron devices is approximately 10 cm/s, rather than around 2x10 cm/s. The Inverted HEMT, one of the major HEMT structural variants, is emphasized throughout this work because of its potential advantages over other variants, and practical results from 0.5 micron gate length Inverted HEMTs are presented.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1986.