Hot-carrier degradation in bipolar transistors at 300 and 110 K-effect on BiCMOS inverter performance

The degradation of bipolar transistors at 300 and 110 K under DC base-emitter reverse-bias stress is discussed. It is found that, for the same reverse voltage, the reverse current is about three to four times smaller at 100 than at 300 K, but the rate of base current degradation is several times larger. A method for modeling the degradation due to the stress from a periodic signal is proposed. The resulting expression for degradation is compatible with the SPICE bipolar model and has been used to simulate the degradation of a BiCMOS inverter operating at 300 and 110 K