Primary research objectives of this laboratory include characterization of ultra-high-speed devices and circuits fabricated in the clean room, design of devices, integrated circuits, and subsystems for high speed optical and wireless communication system applications. The laboratory currently has a micro-wave probe station, a semiconductor parameter analyzer, two spectrum analyzers, a low-noise amplifier, a Silvaco device simulator, microwave circuit design simulators including HP Microwave Design Software (MDS),HP Advanced Desingn System(ADS) ,HSPICE, and work stations. The laboratory is using a vector network analyzer (VNA), microwave tuners, microwave power meters, microwave noise measurement system, and an HP ICCAP software for device parameter extraction now. These measurement system primary cover frequency ranges up to 50 GHz and we will upgrad to cover higher frequency ranges. Also we have a many measurement utilities related to Optics.On-going research projects in the laboratory are the development of millimeter-wave device and MMIC RF modules for 40 GHz LMDS system, the development of HBT power transistors for 30 GHZ LMDS system, and the development of opto-electrionic converter, photo diode(PD), laser diode(LD) and amplifier for millimeter-over-fiber (MMoF) sysetm, the development of InP-based HBT technology, and etc. Detailed research topics include epitaxial growth, device fabrication, device modelling and parameter extraction, microwave device (noise and power) characterization, MMIC design, MMIC fabrication, reliability of device and MMIC.
There is a clean room in the department, 4,320 square-feet-wide with the class of 1,000 to 10,000 depending on the specific area. The clean room is equipped with facilities for fabrication of compound semiconductor devices and circuits for high-speed communication applications. The fabrication equipments currently installed are a V80H chemical beam epitaxy system (CBE), molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), a J5800LV scanning electron microscope (SEM), a Raith Elphy Plus SEM-based e-beam lithography system, a Karl Suss Jirset Photoresist spin coater, a Karl Suss MJB3 mask aligner with a backside alignment capability, Leica optical microscopes, an Oxford Plus80 reactive ion etching (RIE) system, an Oxford Plus80 plasma enhance chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) system, a Temescal BJD-1800 e-beam evaporator system, an Alpha-step profiler, and chemical wet stations. The equipments are capable of fabricating ultra-high-speed devices including high-electron mobility transistors (HEMTs), heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs), high-speed detectors, and modulators operating up to a few hundred GHz and integrated circuits operating up to tens of GHz.
