HEMT (High Electron Mobility Transistor): Advantages and Applications
A high electron mobility transistor or HEMT is a type of field effect transistor (FET) which is used to produce high performance at microwave frequencies. The HEMT provides a fusion of low noise figure that comes combined with the unique ability to function at very high microwave frequencies. These devices are commonly used in aspects of radio frequency designs which require high performance at high frequency levels.
An HEMT is also known as a heterostructure FET or HFET or modulation-doped FET (MODFET). In other words, it can be described as a field-effect transistor that incorporates a combination between two materials with varying band gaps, which would be the heterojunction, as the channel in place of a doped region. They possess unique current-voltage characteristics.
High electron mobility transistors have a few advantages. They produce high gain, which makes these transistors very useful as amplifiers. They can switch speeds very rapidly. And finally, they produce very low noise values as the current variations in these transistors are comparatively low.
HEMTs are used in applications where microwave millimeter wave communications is conducted. They are also used for radar, imaging, as well as radio astronomy. Basically, HEMTs are used where high gain at high frequencies is required along with low noise values. They are also used in voltage converter applications. These transistors are also ideal as digital on-off switches in integrated circuits, and to be used as amplifiers for huge amounts of current by using a small voltage as a control signal.
