A Critical Review of Techniques for the Experimental Extraction of the Thermal Resistance of Bipolar Transistors from DC Measurements—Part I: Thermometer-Based Approaches

Abstract

This paper presents a critical and detailed overview of experimental techniques for the extraction of the thermal resistance of bipolar transistors from simple DC current/voltage measurements. More specifically, this study focuses on techniques based on a thermometer, i.e., the relation between the base-emitter voltage and the junction temperature. The theory behind the techniques is described with a unified and comprehensible nomenclature. Advantages, underlying approximations, and limitations of the methods are illustrated. The accuracy is assessed by emulating the DC measurements with PSPICE electrothermal simulations of a transistor model, applying the techniques to the simulated currents/voltages, and comparing the extracted thermal resistance data with the values obtained from the target formulation embedded in the transistor model. An InGaP/GaAs HBT and an Si/SiGe HBT for high-frequency applications are considered as case studies.

Influence of a PCB Layout Design on the Efficiency of Heat Dissipation and Mutual Thermal Couplings between Transistors

“…During the operation of these semiconductor devices, thermal phenomena, such as selfheating and thermal couplings, occur inside them [3][4][5][6]. These phenomena cause an increase in the junction temperature of these transistors [3,4,[7][8][9][10], worsening their parameters and reliability [11][12][13]. Therefore, designers of electronic devices containing transistors apply solutions that allow the efficient dissipation of the heat generated inside these semiconductor devices to the ambient.…”