A Composite Transistor to Suppress Kink Phenomenon in HBTs for Broadband Design

Author

Gao, Huai ; Sun, Xiaohong ; Hua, Yunan ; Zhang, Xiaodong ; Wang, Rong ; Li, G.P.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Univ. of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

Volume

31

Issue

10

fYear

2010

Firstpage

1113

Lastpage

1115

Abstract

The kink phenomenon in heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) is introduced and mathematically analyzed. A novel composite transistor based on feedback theory is proposed to suppress the kink phenomenon with negligible increase in chip area and power consumption. According to the small-signal analysis, the output impedance of the composite transistor can be represented by an RC series circuit. Thus, the output resistance is a constant value over a wide frequency range. A test die using 2-μm InGaP/GaAs HBT technology from AWSC is fabricated, and a constant real part of S22 is measured from 0.1 to 20 GHz (approaching the HBT´s unity-gain frequency). The proposed composite transistor can significantly ease the design for output matching and broadband amplifiers.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; RC circuits; S-parameters; gallium arsenide; heterojunction bipolar transistors; indium compounds; AWSC; HBT; InGaP-GaAs; RC series circuit; S22; broadband design; composite transistor; feedback theory; heterojunction bipolar transistor; kink phenomenon; output impedance; small-signal analysis; Application specific integrated circuits; Bipolar transistors; Broadband amplifiers; Energy consumption; Frequency; Heterojunction bipolar transistors; Impedance; Impedance matching; Resistance; Resistors; Scattering parameters; Sun; Systems engineering and theory; Heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs); S-parameter; kink phenomenon; matching;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LED.2010.2057240

Filename

5549850