Sub-THz and THz SiGe HBT Electrical Compact Modeling

Bishwadeep Saha,Anjan Chakravorty,Thomas Zimmer,Sebastien Fregonese,Soumya Ranjan Panda

doi:10.3390/electronics10121397

Abstract

From the perspectives of characterized data, calibrated TCAD simulations and compact modeling, we present a deeper investigation of the very high frequency behavior of state-of-the-art sub-THz silicon germanium heterojunction bipolar transistors (SiGe HBTs) fabricated with 55-nm BiCMOS process technology from STMicroelectronics. The TCAD simulation platform is appropriately calibrated with the measurements in order to aid the extraction of a few selected high-frequency (HF) parameters of the state-of-the-art compact model HICUM, which are otherwise difficult to extract from traditionally prepared test-structures. Physics-based strategies of extracting the HF parameters are elaborately presented followed by a sensitivity study to see the effects of the variations of HF parameters on certain frequency-dependent characteristics until 500 GHz. Finally, the deployed HICUM model is evaluated against the measured s-parameters of the investigated SiGe HBT until 500 GHz.

Highlights

Electronics 2021, 10, 1397. https://The silicon-germanium heterojunction bipolar transistor (SiGe HBT) is one of the key contenders in millimeter wave, high frequency and wireless circuit applications for its unique and mature demand fulfillment capabilities in process integration and yield [1,2].In terms of performance, cost and functional integration, BiCMOS technology is superior to the CMOS technology and finds commercial applications in automotive, radar and optical communication and is expected to cover sixth-generation (6G) networks [3]
Prior to concluding this work, here we present for the first time a comparison among the results obtained from the measurements, TCAD simulation and SPICE simulation of the HICUM model equivalent circuit with the extracted RF parameters up to 500 GHz
We reported an in-depth investigation of the high-frequency model of

Summary

Introduction

The silicon-germanium heterojunction bipolar transistor (SiGe HBT) is one of the key contenders in millimeter wave, high frequency and wireless circuit applications for its unique and mature demand fulfillment capabilities in process integration and yield [1,2]. We attempt to present a deeper investigation of the very high frequency behavior of a modern SiGe HBT through actual measurements, TCAD simulation and a state-of-the-art industry-standard compact model, HICUM. We attempt to demonstrate the efficacy of the state-of-the-art SiGe HBT model, HICUM, with calibrated TCAD simulation, and with high frequency de-embedded measured data until 500 GHz. This paper is organized as follows. We have used TCAD to benchmark the quasi-static HICUM model at this level in order to facilitate a more in-depth investigation and extraction of HICUM model specific parameters from the TCAD simulation in the subsequent sections

High-Frequency Model Parameter Estimation

Parasitic Capacitance Parameters

Sensitivity Analysis for HF Parameters

High Frequency Compact Model Evaluation

Conclusions