Fast Recovery Performance and Design Method for High-Power Microwave Limiter Using GaN-SBD Technology

In this article, we report a major breakthrough in the recovery performance of microwave high-power limiters achieved through the utilization of gallium nitride (GaN) Schottky barrier diode (SBD) monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) technology. Introducing SBD into the limiter design to substitute traditional p-i-n diode can reduce design difficulty by eliminating the consideration of minority carrier lifetime. The GaN SBD, featuring a thin AlGaN barrier epitaxial structure and recess-free process in the Schottky region, achieves a low turn-on voltage of 0.64 V, establishing the design freedom of the threshold for the limiter. Based on these advantages, a novel design approach, distinct from traditional p-i-n diode limiters, is proposed and experimentally validated. Additionally, the intrinsic parameters of GaN-SBD suitable for lateral heterojunction structures are developed, and a SPICE model that can be applied to RF simulation is extracted through carefully designed de-embedding patterns. Building upon this methodology, a GaN-SBD limiter is designed and manufactured, demonstrating high incident power above 50 W in the continuous wave (CW) mode, over 140 W in the pulse mode, an insertion loss (lL) of less than 1 dB at 8 GHz, and a fast recovery time of 39 ns. The proposed SBD limiter design methodology is perfectly validated, demonstrating the promising prospects of GaN SBD-based limiters in future high-power and fast-recovery applications.