Impact of deep trench isolation on advanced SiGe HBT reliability in radiation environments

Abstract

We investigate, for the first time, the impact of deep trench isolation on the total ionizing dose (TID) and single event upset (SEU) tolerance of advanced SiGe HBTs. We employ a combination of 63MeV protons, 10keV X-rays, and 36MeV oxygen ion microbeam irradiation and compare a 3rd generation, high-performance (HP), deep-trench isolated, SiGe BiCMOS platform with its cost-performance (CP) variant without deeptrenches. Although the CP SiGe HBTs are shown to be more susceptible to TID damage, the elevated damage is not attributed to variations in deep trench isolation (DTI), but to spacer oxide differences. CP SiGe HBTs are surprisingly found to offer a potential built-in self-mitigation mechanism for SEU, which is a direct result of the influence of the deep trench isolation on the charge collection dynamics associated with ion strikes. Calibrated, full 3D ion strike TCAD simulations are employed to explain the results, revealing substantial enhancement of radial charge diffusion for structures implemented with little to no deep trench. Mitigation of charge collection events are found to occur for emitter-center strikes for devices with limited/eliminated DTI with the caveat of larger collection for outside-DTI ion strikes.