Modeling diamond semiconductor transistors for millimeter wave power amplifier design

High power radio frequency (RF) transfer-doped diamond field effect transistors (FETs) are being fabricated at the Army Research Laboratory (ARL). To implement these into radar systems we have a parallel effort to extract accurate compact models from their measured DC and RF data. At this early stage we are using the commercially available Angelov model and will discuss fitting the model parameters and how their parameter values differ from GaN and GaAs FETs. Results indicate good model prediction of measured results in some cases. Also, model extraction can indicate areas of the device that needs greater attention for improved performance such as the access region resistance. Furthermore, in the saturation region of operation these transistors exhibit a hole saturation velocity of 5 × 10⁶ cm/s obtained from extracted model parameters.