Abstract
A comparative study of the thermal stability of Ti-Pt-Au, Ti, W-Au and WSi2-Ti-Pt-Au Schottky contacts on GaAs is presented. Various reliability tests at temperatures up to 400°C have been performed on these contacts leading to the conclusion that Schottky contacts containing refractory metal silicide diffusion barriers such as WSi2-Ti-Pt-Au remain stable even after long term reliability tests at 400°C. Contacts containing only refractory metal diffusion barriers (Ti-Pt-Au, Ti-W-Au) show severe degradations if operated at temperatures around or above 300°C.