Recent Progress in Silicon Homo- and Heterojunction Bipolar Technology

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it compares the latest European achievements in this field, originating mainly from a cooperative European project (ESPRIT 2016, TIP BASE) with the state of the art all over the world confirming the strong position of the European industry in this particular sector. Second, it asks for confidence in the enormous unbroken potential of silicon bipolar technology. This potential consists of the fast developing silicon processing techniques (driven by the mainstream VLSI technologies) in combination with new materials enabling both permanent further scaling of existing device concepts as well as the introduction and realization of new device configurations.