The paper entitled “A Simple Thermally Activated Trapping Model for AlGaN/GaN HEMTs”, co-authored by Luís Cótimos Nunes, João Lucas Gomes, Filipe Miguel Barradas and José Carlos Pedro (IT - DETI researchers, Aveiro) was awarded the 2022 EuMIC Prize, as recognition as the best paper presented at the “17th European Microwave Integrated Circuits Conference (EuMIC)”, held in Milan, Italy, as part of the European Microwave Week 2022.

AlGaN/GaN HEMTs are currently among one the most attractive technologies for high-power and high-frequency applications. Despite the promising performance metrics of this technology, GaN HEMT-based PAs are affected by trapping effects, something highly detrimental to their achievable linearity. These effects are particularly challenging for the extraction of accurate nonlinear models that are nowadays indispensable tools to meet the stringent metrics required for circuit design.

Physically, it is well known that electron trapping is thermally activated, and, consequently, the device’s thermal response interacts with the trapping dynamics. In this work, a simple circuital trapping model that incorporates the thermal dependency, based on the physics of the electron trapping process, is proposed. Moreover, the required characterization techniques for this model's correct extraction is also presented, and the importance of the trapping thermal dependency inclusion in the prediction of device behavior is shown.

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