The temperature dependence of ideal gain in double diffused silicon transistors

Theoretical treatments predict higher injection efficiency for double diffused silicon transistors than the experimentally observed values. This paper shows that the discrepancy can be partly explained by the difference in the effective energy gaps in the emitter and base regions. Coulomb interaction of the free carriers results in lower energy gap in the heavily doped emitter than in the rest of the transistor. The difference in the energy gaps is experimentally determined from the activation energy difference of the emitter-current and the ideal component of the base Current. It is concluded that too much doping in the emitter lowers the transistor gain, increases the temperature dependence of the gain, and results in a higher excess noise.