Experimental research on the damage effect of HPM on semiconductor bipolar transistor

High power microwave (HPW) can cause the semiconductor devices failure,thereby make the electronic system work anomaly. Bipolar transistors are the typical semiconductor devices. In this paper, the effect of HPM on the bipolar transistors is studied through the HPM injection experiment. The experiment results show that the HPM injected into the devices could cause the degradation, distortion and damage of the transistor. The failure analyses of the tested devices indicate that the bipolar transistors cannot work mainly because the HPM damage the base-emitter junction in of the transistors. The HPM injected into the devices from the base significantly influenced on the characteristics of the device in the operating situation compared with the other pins.