Tunnelling in implanted emitter-base junctions in a low-power UHF process

Tunneling currents in reverse-biased emitter-base junctions were investigated for different implanted base profiles in a low-power UHF process. A trade-off had to be found between improvement of the reverse I-V characteristic of the NPN´s EB junction and deterioration of the device´s HF performance. A semi-theoretical description of the experimental findings is given.