Decreasing reserves of natural resources drives the oil and gas industry to drill deeper and deeper to reach unexploited wells. Coupled with the demand for substantial real-time data transmission, the need for high speed electronics able to operating in harsher ambient environment is quickly on the rise. This paper presents a high temperature VCO for downhole communication system. The proposed VCO is designed and prototyped using 0.25 μm GaN on SiC RF transistor which has extremely high junction temperature capability. Measurements show that the proposed VCO can operate reliably under ambient temperature from 25 °C up to 230 °C and is tunable from 328 MHz to 353 Mhz. The measured output power is 18 dBm with ±1 dB variations over entire covered temperature and frequency range. Measured phase noise at 230 °C is from -121 dBc/Hz to -109 dBc/Hz at 100 KHz offset. / Master of Science

As the oil and gas industry continues to explore higher temperature environments, electronics that operate at those temperatures without additional cooling become critical. Additionally, current communications systems cannot support the higher data-rates being offered by advancements in sensor technology. An RF modem would be capable of supplying the necessary bandwidth to support the higher data-rate. A voltage-controlled oscillator is an essential part of an RF modem. This thesis presents a 2.336-2.402 GHz voltage-controlled oscillator constructed with 0.25 μm GaN-on-SiC technology high electron mobility transistor (HEMTs). The measured operating temperature range was from 25°C to 225°C. A minimum tuning range of 66 MHz, less than 20% variation in output power, and harmonics more than 20 dB down from the fundamental is observed. The phase noise is between -88 and -101 dBc/Hz at 100 kHz offset at 225°C. This is the highest frequency oscillator that operates simultaneously at high temperatures reported in literature. / Master of Science / The oil and gas industry require communications systems to transmit data collected from sensors in deep wells to the surface. However, the temperatures of these wells can be more than 210 °C. Traditional Silicon based circuits are unable to operate at these temperatures for a prolonged period. Advancements in wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductor devices enable entrance into this realm of high temperature electronics. One such WBG technology is Gallium Nitride (GaN) which offers simultaneous high temperature and high frequency performance. These properties make GaN an ideal technology for a high temperature RF modem. A voltage-controlled oscillator is an essential part of a RF modem. This thesis demonstrates a GaN-based 2.36 GHz voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) whose performance has been measured over a temperature range of 25°C-225°C. This is the highest frequency oscillator that operates simultaneously at high temperatures reported in literature.

As the oil industry continues to drill deeper to reach new wells, electronics are being required to operate at extreme pressures and temperatures. Coupled with substantial real-time data targets, the need for robust high speed electronics is quickly on the rise. This paper presents a high temperature wideband low noise amplifier (LNA) with zero temperature coefficient maximum available gain (ZTCMAG) biasing for a downhole communication system. The proposed LNA is designed and prototyped using 0.25μm GaN on SiC RF transistor technology, which is chosen due to the high junction temperature capability. Measurements show that the proposed LNA can operate reliably up to an ambient temperature of 230°C with a minimum noise figure (NF) of 2.0 dB, gain of 16.1 dB, and P1dB of 19.1 dBm from 230.5MHz — 285.5MHz. The maximum variation with temperature from 25°C to 230°C is 1.53dB for NF and 0.65dB for gain. / Master of Science

The thesis focuses on the gas flow profile optimization of a non-conventional injector in a hot-wall MOCVD system. The injector’s gas flow profile is simulated with CFD and demonstrates awell-behaved laminar flow with a parabolic profile. To ensure the theory is in coherence with the reality, a qualitative study with five thermocouples in a test graphite piece of the was performed. First the thesis will take you through an introduction of the semiconductor field to arrive in a problem formulation. Then you will read about the principles of MOCVD systems, fluid dynamics principles and thermocouple theory. The experiment’s way of approach is thendescribed through all steps from blue print to results. A discussion about the result and the conclusion will be read before the proposals of future work based on the thesis work. The laminar flow is confirmed according to the resulting data and the limitations of the system is set to two different cases depending on background temperature. At 1000 °C a laminar flow is strongly indicated to be obtained at position 3A, closest to the growth area, within the gas flow range of 25 SLM regardless of background pressure, except for 700 mBar indicating turbulent flow for 15 SLM an up. At 20 and 200 mBar the laminar flow limit is suggested by data to be even higher and reaching a value of 35 SLM. At 450 °C the data indicate a laminar flow up to 20 SLM at position 3A regardless of background pressure condition, except for 700 mBar where the data indicate a laminar flow at 35 and 40 SLM. 50 mBar strongly indicates a laminar flow profile up to a gas flow of 35 SLM. With a background pressure of 20 mBar, the data suggests a laminar flow profile up to at least 25 SLM. At 100 mBar the data indicates a laminar flow within the range of 30 SLM.

<p dir="ltr">Rapid evolution in wireless technology and the increasing demand for high bandwidth communication for 5G/6G and the Internet of Things (IoT) have necessitated a growing number of components in radio front-end modules in an increasingly overcrowded radio frequency (RF) spectrum. Low-cost ad-hoc radios have drawn consumer interest, enabling new devices like microelectromechanical (MEMS) resonators for on-chip clocking, frequency-selective filters, RF signal processing, and spectral sensing for their small footprint and low power consumption. Gallium nitride (GaN) is an attractive electromechanical material due to its high coupling coefficient, acoustic velocity, and low viscoelastic losses. These benefits enable high-Q MEMS resonators in GaN monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) with scaling capability up to mm-wave frequencies, making this technology platform a contender for high-performance programmable radios in RF/mm-wave, sensors for harsh environments, and information processing in quantum systems.</p><p dir="ltr">The bias-dependent control mechanism of the 2D electron gas (2DEG) in GaN heterostructures can be exploited to design different switchable and tunable devices for reconfigurable MEMS components. This work presents, for the first time, a comprehensive study of the electromechanical performances of different transduction mechanisms in switchable GaN MEMS resonators. A unique OFF-state shunt design, where the 2DEG in an AlN/GaN heterostructure is utilized to control electromechanical transduction in Lamb mode resonators, is also experimentally demonstrated in this work. To make a valid comparison among switchable transducers, equivalent circuit models are developed to extract key parameters from the measurements by fitting them in both ON and OFF states. The switchable transducer with Ohmic interdigitated transducers (IDTs) and Schottky control gate shows superior performance among the designs under consideration with complete suppression of the mechanical mode in the OFF state and a maximum frequency-quality factor product of 5x10¹²s^-1 and a figure-of-merit of 5.18 at 1GHz in the ON state.</p><p dir="ltr">Over the past few years, there have been numerous efforts to scale the frequencies of MEMS devices in the GaN platform towards mm-wave frequencies. However, challenges remain due to the multi-layer thick buffer, typical in the growth of GaN epilayer on a substrate. This work presents the investigation of SweGaN QuanFINEbuffer-free and ultrathin GaN-on-SiC for the performance of surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices beyond 10GHz. Finite element analysis (FEA) is performed to find the range of frequencies for the Sezawa mode in the structure. Transmission lines and resonators are designed, fabricated, and characterized. Modified Mason circuit models are developed for each class of devices to extract critical performance metrics and benchmark with the state-of-the-art and theoretical limits for GaN. Sezawa modes are observed at frequencies up to 14.3GHz, achieving a record high in GaN MEMS to the best of our knowledge. A maximum piezoelectric coupling of 0.61% and frequency-quality factor product of 6x10¹²s^-1 are achieved for Sezawa resonators at 11GHz, with a minimum propagation loss of 0.26dB/λ for the two-port devices. The devices also exhibit high linearity with input third-order intercept points (IIP3) of 65dBm at 9GHz.</p><p dir="ltr">This work also investigates tunable acoustoelectric (AE) devices in the QuanFINE platform, leveraging its inherent 2DEG in the AlGaN/GaN heterostructure. Using 9.7GHz Sezawa mode acoustic delay lines, we report the highest frequency of AE in GaN to date. Active and passive AE devices are designed for voltage-dependent non-reciprocity and propagation loss without modification to the standard process for the High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs) in MMICs. Drain/source Ohmic contacts control the drift velocity of the 2DEG, and the Schottky gate modulates 2DEG carrier concentration, resulting in a 30dB/cm separation between forward and reverse acoustic waves for a 2.56kV/cm lateral DC electric field and a maximum change in propagation loss of 50dB/cm for -5V DC at the control gate, respectively. The QuanFINEtechnology with AlGaN/GaN heterostructure enables a platform for switchable MEMS resonators and tunable acoustoelectric devices in MMICs for reconfigurable front end approaching mm-wave frequencies.</p>