Assessment of the Trap-Induced Insertion Loss Degradation of RF GaN Switches Under Operating Regimes

It is well known that the trap-induced performance degradation of microwave GaN-on-SiC HEMTs is proportional to the peak voltages applied at the device’s terminals. Considering that RF GaN switches are subject to high voltages, their characteristics are especially affected by trapping phenomena. This paper describes the GaN switch insertion loss (IL) degradation due to traps. A custom characterization setup is used for the measurement of the switch IL under dynamic voltage stress, typical of the actual operating regime. It is shown that, depending on the applied voltages setting the trap state, an increase of the switch IL up to 60% was measured for a 0.25 µm GaN-on-SiC technology.