Silicon Based Microwave and Millimeter Wave Sources Indigenous Technology Development

Abstract

High power and low noise sources are essential for the successful development of transmitter and receiver sub-systems respectively for applications in microwave and millimetre wave frequency ranges. About two decades earlier, Impatts and Baritts were considered to be most promising semiconductor devices for such applications. Keeping in view the emerging trends and inherent capabilities of these two families of devices, a systematic effort of developing device design, fabrication technology and characterization techniques was initiated at Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute (CEERI), Pilani. Under this program, packaged devices with reasonable power output and noise characteristics were developed, characterized and delivered to users for field trials. Due to scarcity of commercial vendors to supply the suitable packages for these devices, a parallel effort was made to develop coaxial type package technology to cover a frequency range of 10–100 GHz in different configurations to meet the typical circuit requirements. A number of unit processes, developed in this connection, have also been used in other areas of applications besides those in semiconductor device fabrication. A brief review of the entire effort, made in this context, is presented here in this paper as an example of the indigenous high-tech product development for strategic applications.

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S Ahmad

S Ahmad is a senior scientist at Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute, Pilani. After completing his master's degree from Allahabad University, Allahabad and PhD followed by a brief teaching assignment at BITS, Pilani, he has been involved in R&D activities in the area of microwave and millimeter wave semiconductor devices in the present organization. A clean room laboratory equipped with modern device processing and characterization facilities has been set up by him to undertake sponsored projects in these areas. Silicon Baritts, Impatts and their packages have been developed in various programmes under his supervision. Device design activity was also initiated by him using numerical solutions of charge carrier transport equations under practical boundary conditions. These efforts resulted in about sixty publications in national and international journals and six patents. Development of high power laser sources for pumping and medical applications is his current area of interest besides ongoing millimeter wave devices activity.

Dr Ahmad is a Fellow of IETE and the Principal Hony Editor, IETE J of Research.