Field effect transistor with non-linear transfer characteristic

US5412224A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Motorola, Inc. · US

Inventors

• Herbert Goronkin · Tempe, US
• Jun Shen · Phoenix, US
• Saied N. Tehrani · Tempe, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Jun 8, 1992
• Grant date: May 2, 1995
• Expiry date: Jun 8, 2012

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H10D30/751

Abstract

A field effect semiconductor device having multiple vertically stacked channels (12, 14, 16) separated by barrier layers comprising wide bandgap material (18) is provided. The channels (12, 14, 16) are formed on a wide bandgap buffer layer (11) and each channel is coupled a N-type drain region (22b). Each channel is also coupled to an N-type source region (25b). With appropriate gate bias on a gate electrode (17), quantized energy levels in the channels (12, 14, 16) are aligned to provide self-doping by electrons in the valence band of the P-channel (14) moving to the conduction band of the N-channels (12, 16) providing peak channel conductivity. At higher gate bias, one of the N-channels (12) becomes non-conductive creating a negative resistance region.