Feasibility study of 25 V SiGe RF-power transistors for cellular base station output amplifiers

For 2+ GHz-bandwidth applications, the commonly used bipolar Si RF-power transistors in the output amplifiers in cellular base stations for mobile communications are pushed to the limit of performance. The objective of this work was to study the feasibility of using SiGe/Si grown on pre-processed Si wafers for power-HBTs operating at 25 V for improved performance. The large size HBT devices (2×0.1 mm2) were processed using an existing 100 mm poly-Si emitter RF power BJT technology with Au metallization and some necessary modified steps for SiGe implementation. The base layers with designed Ge and B profiles were deposited either by MBE or CVD. The devices showed very high BVcbo (>80 V) with very low leakage currents. The current gain was very stable over a wide IC range, and weakly influenced by the environmental temperature. At 2 GHz, the CW output power of 20 W (at 25 V) was obtained with an efficiency of 68% in class AB operation. The long-term temperature stability was excellent. SiGe RF power-HBTs could be operated at full output power for an extended time without any external temperature bias compensation, which is virtually impossible with conventional Si-BJTs.