Collector Current Ideality Factor Research Articles

Investigation of cryogenic current–voltage anomalies in SiGe HBTs: Role of base–emitter junction inhomogeneities

The deviations of cryogenic collector current–voltage characteristics of SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) from ideal drift-diffusion theory have been a topic of investigation for many years. Recent work indicates that direct tunneling across the base contributes to the non-ideal current in highly scaled devices. However, cryogenic discrepancies have been observed even in older-generation devices for which direct tunneling is negligible, suggesting that another mechanism may also contribute. Although similar non-ideal current–voltage characteristics have been observed in Schottky junctions and were attributed to a spatially inhomogeneous junction potential, this explanation has not been considered for SiGe HBTs. Here, we experimentally investigate this hypothesis by characterizing the collector current ideality factor and built-in potential of a SiGe HBT vs temperature using a cryogenic probe station. The temperature dependence of the ideality factor and the relation between the built-in potential as measured by capacitance–voltage and current–voltage characteristics are in good qualitative agreement with the predictions of a theory of electrical transport across a spatially inhomogeneous junction. These observations suggest that inhomogeneities in the base–emitter junction potential may contribute to the cryogenic non-idealities. This work helps to identify the physical mechanisms limiting the cryogenic microwave noise performance of SiGe HBTs.

A collector current model for InAlAs/InGaAsSb/InGaAs double heterojunction bipolar transistors with non-ideal effects

A collector current model incorporating electron diffusion in the base and thermionic emission at the abrupt B–E heterojunction is derived and applied to InGaAsSb heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs). Parameters extracted from the model include effective base doping concentration, conduction band discontinuity (ΔEC) at the base-emitter junction, and emitter resistance. The calculated current from the model is consistent with the measured result. It is found that a high collector current ideality factor is resulted from a nonzero ΔEC and a low effective base doping concentration. Moreover, a nonzero ΔEC makes the high-injection effect almost invisible in collector current characteristics, even if it actually exists.

On the Emitter Resistance of High-Performance GaAs- and InP-Based Heterojunction Bipolar Transistors

Emitter resistance REE and collector current ideality factor nC of InGaP/GaAs heterostructure bipolar transistors (HBTs) and InP/InGaAs double-HBTs (DHBTs) were investigated from the viewpoints of DC and RF characteristics. It was found that the apparent ideality factor of collector current nCapp increases with the collector current IC for all HBTs. The increase in nCapp is more conspicuous in the InP/InGaAs DHBTs than in the InGaP/GaAs HBTs. The most likely explanation is that the REE consists of two components: one is the well-known contact resistivity REE0 and the other is band-profile-dependent resistivity REi, which decreases as IC increases. In the InP/InGaAs DHBTs, the increase in nCapp with IC is made remarkable by the insertion of an InGaAs etching stop layer (ESL) that makes it easy to form a ledge structure indispensable for high-reliability and high-performance HBTs. However, with the increase of IC, the difference in REE between the InP/InGaAs DHBTs with and without the ESL becomes small. The insertion of an ESL is considered acceptable for high-speed IC applications. Using an emitter structure with an ESL, we developed self-aligned InP/InGaAs DHBTs with a ledge passivation structure that attained an fT of 302 GHz, fmax of 388 GHz, and BVCEO of 6.2 V.

A submicrometer 252 GHz f/sub T/ and 283 GHz f/sub MAX/ InP DHBT with reduced C/sub BC/ using selectively implanted buried subcollector (SIBS)

The selectively implanted buried subcollector (SIBS) is a method to decouple the intrinsic and extrinsic C/sub BC/ of InP-based double-heterojunction bipolar transistors (DHBTs). Similar to the selectively implanted collector (SIC) used in Si-based bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) and HBTs, ion implantation is used to create a N+ region in the collector directly under the emitter. By moving the subcollector boundary closer to the BC junction, SIBS allows the intrinsic collector to be thin, reducing /spl tau//sub C/, while simultaneously allowing the extrinsic collector to be thick, reducing C/sub BC/. For a 0.35 × 6 μm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> emitter InP-based DHBT with a SIBS, 6 fF total C/sub BC/ and >6 V BV/sub CBO/ were obtained with a 110-nm intrinsic collector thickness. A maximum f <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">T</sub> of 252 GHz and f <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">max</sub> of 283 GHz were obtained at a V/sub CE/ of 1.6 V and I/sub C/ of 7.52 mA. Despite ion implantation and materials regrowth during device fabrication, a base and collector current ideality factor of /spl sim/2.0 and /spl sim/1.4, respectively, at an I/sub C/ of 100 μA, and a peak dc /spl beta/ of 36 were measured.

Comprehensive studies of InGaP/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors with different thickness of setback layers

The performances of InGaP/GaAs heterostructure bipolar transistors (HBTs) with different thickness of setback layers are theoretically studied. The appropriate thickness of the setback layer is an important factor in high-speed HBTs. In this work, it is found that the HBT device with a 60–90 Å setback layer has better DC and RF characteristics due to the absence of potential spike and reduced transit time. In addition, the studied devices with appropriate setback layer thickness have lower offset voltage, reverse saturation voltage, and base and collector current ideality factor.

Study of direct current characteristics of carbon-doped GaInP/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistor grown by solid source molecular beam epitaxy

This article reports the dc characteristics of a GaInP/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) with carbon-doped GaAs base layer grown by solid source molecular beam epitaxy using carbon tetrabromide (CBr4) as p-type dopant precursor. Hydrofluoric acid (HF) was used to passivate the GaInP/GaAs HBTs. At base bias voltages below 0.9 V in the Gummel plot, the base current of large area devices after HF passivation, was greatly reduced indicating that the extrinsic base surface recombination current was significantly reduced. After HF passivation, detailed dc characterization of the device performance within the temperature range of 300–380 K was carried out, and the carrier transport properties were investigated. The base current and collector current ideality factors at 300 K were 1.12 and 1.01, respectively. This indicates that a space charge region recombination current is insignificant in the base. From the temperature dependent Gummel plot, the activation energies of the collector current and base current were obtained. For the collector current, the activation energy is 1.4 eV, which is close to the band gap of the GaAs base. This indicates that the collector current is determined by the drift-diffusion process. For the base current, the activation energy is also 1.4 eV, indicating that band-to-band recombination plays a dominant role in the base current. No trap-related recombination was observed in the base and collector currents, which further indicates the good base material quality in the HBT structure. The current gain versus collector current characteristics at different temperatures were also investigated and analyzed.

Comprehensive study of InGaP/AlxGa1−xAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors with different doping concentrations of AlxGa1−xAs graded layers

The performances of InGaP/AlxGa1−xAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) with different doping concentrations of AlxGa1−xAs graded layers are theoretically studied. The use of the AlxGa1−xAs graded layer plays a key role in affecting the direct current and radio frequency performances of the studied HBTs. It is found that the studied devices with suitable doping concentrations of AlxGa1−xAs graded layers exhibit lower offset voltages, saturation voltages, and base and collector current ideality factors. Furthermore, due to the use of proper doping concentrations of AlxGa1−xAs graded layers, the studied devices show high values of the unity current gain cut-off frequency (fT) and maximum oscillation frequency (fmax). It is known that, from the theoretical analysis, the appropriate doping concentration of the AlxGa1−xAs graded layer is 1 × 1016 to 1 × 1018 cm−3. Consequently, this work is promising for device engineers to design high-performance HBT structures.

Elevated Temperature Characteristics of Carbon-Doped GaInP/GaAs Heterojunction Bipolar Transistor Grown by Solid Source Molecular Beam Epitaxy

ABSTRACTThis paper reports the characteristics of GaInP/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) with carbon-doped GaAs base layer grown by solid source molecular beam epitaxy (SSMBE) using carbon tetrabromide (CBr4) as p-type dopant precursor. Hydrofluoric acid (HF) was used to passivate the GaInP/GaAs HBTs. At base bias voltages below 0.8V in the Gummel plot, the base current of large-area devices after HF treatment was greatly reduced. This indicates that the extrinsic base surface recombination current was greatly reduced. After HF treatment, detailed DC characterization of the device performance from 300K to 380K was carried out and the carrier transport properties were investigated. The base current and collector current ideality factors at 300K were 1.12 and 1.01, respectively. This indicates that the space- charge region recombination current in the base is insignificant. From the temperature- dependent Gummel plot, the activation energies of collector current and base current were obtained. For the collector current, the activation energy is 1.4eV, which is close to the bandgap of the GaAs base. This indicates that the collector current is determined by the drift-diffusion process, in which an energy barrier of the same magnitude as the base bandgap is to be overcome by electrons before they reach the collector. For the base current, the activation energy is also 1.4eV, which is close to the bandgap of GaAs, indicating that band-to-band recombination plays a dominant role in the base current. No trap-related recombination was observed for the base and collector currents, which further indicates the high quality carbon-doped GaAs base material for the HBT structures.

Characterization of InP/InGaAs double-heterojunction bipolar transistors with tunnelling barriers and composite collector structures

We study and demonstrate the dc performance of two InP/InGaAs double-heterojunction bipolar transistor (DHBTs) with the undoped tunnelling barrier and composite collector structures. Due to the mass filtering effect for holes, a thin InP tunnelling barrier can be used to replace the wide-gap emitter. By varying the thickness of the barrier, distinct collector current ideality factors can be obtained which reveal different injection mechanisms at the emitter. The 4000 Å InP collectors with InP/InGaAs abrupt junctions and InP/InGaAsP/InGaAs step-graded junctions achieve high breakdown voltages of 9.2 and 14.6 V, respectively. Furthermore, the abrupt junction and δ-doping structure eliminate carrier blocking across the base-collector heterojunction more effectively than the step-graded junction. We find that the reduction of the multiplication avalanche of the step-graded junction DHBT leads to the severe self-heating effect. For the abrupt junction DHBT, the dc current gain is almost independent of the perimeter-to-area ratio of the emitter due to the low surface recombination.

An analytical model of the inverse base width modulation effect in SiGe graded heterojunction bipolar transistors

The analytical model of the collector current ideality factor degradation at high Vbe in modern SiGe graded base heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) has been developed for the first time. It is subsequently used for the analysis of the inverse base width modulation (IBWM) effects in SiGe HBTs with respect to collector current degradation, current gain premature roll-off and SiGe base transit time. Comparing the IBWM effects calculated for HBTs with various base impurity concentration doping profiles and the Ge grading, we have found that the careful optimization of SiGe base parameters may substantially minimize negative influence of the IBMW effects on the HBT electrical parameters.

Emitter-base bias dependence of the collector current ideality factor in abrupt Pnp AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors

Starting with the 4×4 Luttinger–Kohn Hamiltonian and making use of the axial approximation, we calculate the emitter current as a function of the applied forward emitter-base bias for a typical Pnp AlGaAs/GaAs single heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT). While including the effects of emitter series resistance and recombination in the quasi-neutral base and emitter-base space-charge region, we then calculate the collector current density versus emitter to base bias and find it to be in excellent agreement with the experimental results for a Al0.4Ga0.6As/GaAs Pnp HBT recently reported in the literature. For that structure, the collector current ideality factor is found to increase from 1.1 at low forward bias VEB to 3.0 at large applied emitter-base forward bias approaching the built-in potential. Experimental values are equal to 1.2 and 2.25 at low and large VEB, respectively.

Heterojunction bipolar transistors in AlGaInP/GaAs grown by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy

A series of low-pressure metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy grown AlxGa0.52−xIn0.48P/GaAs single heterojunction bipolar transistors with x=0, 0.18, 0.30, 0.40, and 0.52 have been studied. These devices consistently exhibit near-ideal characteristics with base and collector current ideality factors close to unity except in the ungraded AlInP case. A low conduction band spike height which is believed to be due to unintentional grading at the emitter-base junction of the partially graded devices (intentionally graded down close to the Ga0.52In0.48P lattice-matched composition) provides effective hole current suppression over the whole range of compositions. Base bulk recombination current was determined to be the current-gain limiting mechanism for x≤0.3 in this heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT) system. The common-emitter dc current gain showed a maximum value of 380 at JC=4×103 A/cm2 for x=0.18 which translates to a minority electron diffusion length of 1.1 μm. These are the highest values reported for a base sheet resistance of 440 Ω/⧠.

A comparative study of GaInP/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors grown by CBE using TBA/TBP and AsH/sub 3//PH/sub 3/ sources

GaInP/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT's) have been fabricated on epitaxial layers grown by chemical beam epitaxy (CBE) using an all metalorganic approach. Reduced toxicity tertiarybutylarsine (TBA) and tertiarybutylphosphine (TBP) were used for group V sources. DC results showed good base and collector current ideality factors of 1.23 and 1.05 respectively. The maximum DC current of 50 was obtained. A comparison of these results with HBT characteristics obtained using AsH/sub 3//PH/sub 3/ or TBA/PH/sub 3/ demonstrates the feasibility of replacing the toxic AsH/sub 3/ and PH/sub 3/ by less toxic TBA and TBP sources in the growth of GaInP/GaAs HBT's.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The influence of emitter-base junction design on collector saturation current, ideality factor, Early voltage, and device switching speed of Si/SiGe HBT's

In advanced Si/SiGe HBT's the base is doped much higher than emitter and collector. Base outdiffusion becomes a problem because of the formation of parasitic barriers that degrade device performance. The simulations and experiments of this paper show that a strong correlation exists between (a) the drop of the collector saturation current, (b) an increase of its ideality factor and (c) a rise of the switching time due to an additional emitter delay which can no longer be neglected. Curves of these three parameters as a function of Si/SiGe heterointerface position and outdiffusion at the base-emitter interface have been calculated and indicate that only a few nm shift may cause severe device degradation. An important result is that the collector current ideality factor or the inverse Early voltage is a very sensitive indicator for the quality of the emitter-base interface. Application of these results have yielded experimental SiGe HBT's with transit frequencies above 60 GHz. >

Emitter injection and collector current ideality in abrupt heterojunction AlInAs/GaInAs HBTs

We investigated the electron injection process for high-speed N- p- n AlInAs/GaInAs HBTs by measuring collector and base currents as a function of base-emitter voltage with collector-base voltage equal to zero (Gummel plots) at temperatures from 77 to 300 K. We compared the measured collector current with calculations based on electron injection from emitter to base by tunneling through the conduction band spike and thermionic emission over it, using a modified version of the thermionic-field emission theory developed by Crowell and Rideout. Good agreement was obtained between the experimental collector current ideality factor and tunneling-thermionic emission theory for all temperatures and currents. This is an improvement over drift-diffusion and thermionic emission models, which have been used for HBTs but which do not correctly describe the experimentally observed temperature and current dependence of the ideality of the collector current. The tunneling-thermionic emission model explains the increase in collector current ideality factor that occurs as the transistor is biased at high collector current density ( J C ≧ 10 5 A cm −2 ), which is the regime of operation in which f T is maximized and a low ideality factor is most important. The model also explains the experimentally observed variation of h FE with ln I C. Thus the tunneling-thermionic emission model is a useful aid in the design of the epitaxial structure for high-frequency HBTs.

Effects of humidity and organic coating on surface potential propagation in passivated devices : T. A. Temofonte and J. R. Szedon. Proc. IEEE Reliab. Phys. Symp., Las Vegas, USA. 31 March–2 April (1971)

We investigated the electron injection process for high-speed N-p-n AlInAs/GaInAs HBTs by measuring collector and base currents as a function of base-emitter voltage with collector-base voltage equal to zero (Gummel plots) at temperatures from 77 to 300 K. We compared the measured collector current with calculations based on electron injection from emitter to base by tunneling through the conduction band spike and thermionic emission over it, using a modified version of the thermionic-field emission theory developed by Crowell and Rideout. Good agreement was obtained between the experimental collector current ideality factor and tunneling-thermionic emission theory for all temperatures and currents. This is an improvement over drift-diffusion and thermionic emission models, which have been used for HBTs but which do not correctly describe the experimentally observed temperature and current dependence of the ideality of the collector current. The tunneling-thermionic emission model explains the increase in collector current ideality factor that occurs as the transistor is biased at high collector current density (JC ≧ 105Acm−2), which is the regime of operation in which fT is maximized and a low ideality factor is most important. The model also explains the experimentally observed variation of hFE with ln IC. Thus the tunneling-thermionic emission model is a useful aid in the design of the epitaxial structure for high-frequency HBTs.