Gallium Nitride (GaN) High electron Mobility transistors (hemts)
The reliability of GaN devices has been widely reported, but most published results focus on intrinsic degradation and aging effects of typical performance parameters.
With the focus shifting to system and network reliability, application-specific testing can be vital for characterizing the effects of GaN devices on system reliability.
In a system, other parameters that are not tracked during a typical intrinsic reliability test can dramatically impact performance assurance with time. Examples of such a parameter include intermodulation distortion (IMD), which is a critical figure-of-merit (FOM) in communication system designs such as software-defined radio (SDR) and 5G New Radio (NR) digital transmitters.
Accel-RF Instruments Corporation has developed a novel test method for investigating aging effects on 3rd order intermodulation distortion (IMD3) levels.
This report will step through the:
- Significance of intermodulation distortion.
- Test setup that was used.
- Details and results of the ALT.