Electrical stress effect on RF power characteristics of SiGe hetero-junction bipolar transistors

A large-signal RF reliability study of complementary SiGe HBTs on SOI intended for use in wireless applications

“…The post 60 sec stress f T characteristics remain unchanged, indicating no post-stress change in internal capacitances. This was also observed in [10]. Overall, the device is able to withstand 60 sec of +20 dBm RF stress without showing catastrophic failure.…”

“…The DUT always turns very resistive, in a similar manner to the 'Damage Type 2' for the HVNPN case, suggesting a metalization failure ( Figure 6). Post 60 sec stress, f T remained unchanged, since capacitances did not change with stress, as was also confirmed in [10]. …”

Study of electromagnetic field stress impact on SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor performance

“…The commonly associated mechanism responsible for this shift in base current is the generation of a damage region at the sidewall-spacer oxide and silicon interfaces. This damage induces interface traps (Si/SiO2) in the E–B spacer oxide due to a hot carrier injection [2, 5, 17]. These stresses induce generation/recombination trap centers and lead to an increase in the recombination component of the base current which produces the current gain degradation [5, 18].…”

“…Emerging HBT technologies allow the integration of a large quantity of high-performance Radio Frequency (RF) circuits and high-speed digital circuits on a single chip. The most mature technology is the bipolar technology where the SiGe allows speeding up the device performance up to the millimeter wave range [2]. The SiGe technology exhibited very attractive high- and low-frequency noise performances due to the improvement given by the heterojunction [3].…”

“…These applications exhibit very strict requirements in terms of reliability; before being involved at the industrial level, there is a need to evaluate the reliability of these devices and to identify the degradation mechanisms in order to be able to propose technological solutions. Many papers have been published on the SiGe HBT's reliability for radiation, thermal, and electrical stresses [2, 5, 6] but, to our knowledge, no reported work has been carried out on electromagnetic-radiated stress effects. The paper will be organized as follows.…”