The use of base ballasting to prevent the collapse of current gain in AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors

Author

Liu, William ; Khatibzadeh, Ali ; Sweder, Jim ; Chau, Hin-Fai

Author_Institution

Corporate R&D, Texas Instrum. Inc., Dallas, TX, USA

Volume

43

Issue

2

fYear

1996

fDate

2/1/1996 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

245

Lastpage

251

Abstract

We propose the use of base-ballasting resistance to guarantee absolute thermal stability in AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs). Base-ballasted HBTs are fabricated and the measured I-V, regression and S-factor characteristics are discussed. We present a numerical model which elucidates the reasons why the base-ballasting scheme is helpful to HBTs but is damaging to silicon bipolar transistors. We compare measured small-signal and large-signal performances of unballasted, emitter-ballasted, and base-ballasted HBTs

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; aluminium compounds; gallium arsenide; heterojunction bipolar transistors; thermal stability; AlGaAs-GaAs; AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors; I-V characteristics; S-factor; base-ballasting resistance; current gain collapse; numerical model; regression; thermal stability; Bipolar transistors; Electrical resistance measurement; Electronic ballasts; Gallium arsenide; Heterojunction bipolar transistors; Numerical models; Performance evaluation; Silicon; Thermal resistance; Thermal stability;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/16.481724

Filename

481724