Title :
High-reliability GaAs HBT monolithic microwave amplifier
Author :
Yamada, F.M. ; Oki, A.K. ; Streit, D.C. ; Umemoto, D.K. ; Tran, L.T. ; Block, T.R. ; Okazaki, D.T. ; Hoppe, M. ; Rezek, E.A.
Author_Institution :
Electron. Syst. & Technol. Div., TRW Inc., Redondo Beach, CA, USA
Abstract :
High-reliability performance of an X-band high-intercept MMIC amplifier fabricated using a production GaAs/AlGaAs HBT process technology is reported. Operating at 20 kA/cm/sup 2/ quiescent collector current density, the single-stage balanced amplifier with on-chip regulation has a projected median-time-to-failure (MTF) of 4/spl times/10/sup 7/ hours at a 125/spl deg/C junction temperature. MTF was determined by three-temperature constant-stress accelerated lifetest using |/spl Delta/S21|>1.0 dB as the failure criterion. Additionally, an activation energy (Ea) of 1.2 eV and log-standard deviation (/spl sigma/) of 0.7 was measured. This is the first report of HBT reliability based on small-signal microwave characteristics of HBT MMIC amplifiers under lifetest.
Keywords :
III-V semiconductors; MMIC amplifiers; bipolar MMIC; gallium arsenide; heterojunction bipolar transistors; semiconductor device reliability; 125 C; GaAs HBT monolithic microwave amplifier; GaAs-AlGaAs; X-band MMIC amplifier; activation energy; log-standard deviation; median-time-to-failure; on-chip regulation; quiescent collector current density; reliability; single-stage balanced amplifier; small-signal characteristics; three-temperature constant-stress accelerated lifetest; Artificial intelligence; Gallium arsenide; Gold; Heterojunction bipolar transistors; MMICs; Microwave amplifiers; Molecular beam epitaxial growth; Production systems; Silicon; Space technology;
Conference_Titel :
Microwave Symposium Digest, 1997., IEEE MTT-S International
Conference_Location :
Denver, CO, USA
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-3814-6
DOI :
10.1109/MWSYM.1997.604542
