Hot carrier induced bipolar transistor degradation due to base dopant compensation by hydrogen: theory and experiment

Author

Quon, David ; Gopi, Paramesh K. ; Sonek, Gregory J. ; Li, G.P.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., California Univ., Irvine, CA, USA

Volume

41

Issue

10

fYear

1994

fDate

10/1/1994 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1824

Lastpage

1830

Abstract

New experimental and analytical results are presented which show that extrinsic and intrinsic base dopant compensation by hydrogen is responsible for large changes in the bipolar transistor parameters of emitter-base breakdown voltage (V_ebo), forward collector current (I_c) and series base resistance (R_bx) when such transistors are operated under avalanche and inverted mode stress conditions. A new physical model has been developed to explain the observed changes in V_ebo and I_c as a function of stress time, and the analytical results are shown to be well correlated with the experimental data. Lastly, the effects of degradation on transistor voltage gain bandwidth (f_max) and emitter coupled bipolar comparator delay (τ_delay) are assessed and discussed in terms of circuit performance degradation

Keywords

bipolar transistors; hot carriers; hydrogen; impact ionisation; semiconductor device models; avalanche mode stress; base dopant compensation; bipolar transistor degradation; circuit performance degradation; emitter coupled bipolar comparator delay; emitter-base breakdown voltage; forward collector current; hot carriers; hydrogen; inverted mode stress; physical model; series base resistance; transistor voltage gain bandwidth; Bandwidth; Bipolar transistor circuits; Bipolar transistors; Degradation; Delay effects; Hot carriers; Hydrogen; Performance gain; Stress; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/16.324594

Filename

324594