The effects of emitter region recombination and bandgap narrowing on the current gain and the collector lifetime of high-voltage bipolar transistors

It is shown that the apparent bandgap narrowing ΔE _g^app in heavily doped silicon, deduced from the electrical measurements on bipolar transistors using minority-carrier mobility values, is consistent with the values extracted from the luminescence data. Using an empirical fit to this ΔE_g^app as a function of doping and the lifetime model applicable to heavily doped diffused layers, it is demonstrated by numerically computing the current gain of n⁺-p-ν-n⁺ transistors that the experimental current gain can be predicted with excellent accuracy. Using these models for estimating the hole current injected into the heavily doped emitter region, it is shown that the observed dependence of the collector lifetime of high-voltage transistors on the parameters of the emitter region can be adequately explained. High-voltage n⁺-p-ν-n⁺ transistors having different emitter junction depths and emitter surface doping concentrations are studied, and the experimental results are compared to theoretical calculations of current gain and collector lifetime