Ultra-low-power SiGe HBT technology for wide-range microwave applications

Ultra-low power SiGe HBT was developed for wide-range microwave applications. The key technologies of the SiGe HBT are based on well-controlled SiGe / Si epitaxial growth techniques with low-temperature chemical vapor deposition (CVD), which give several important features of the low-power SiGe HBT. The prominent features are a robustly designed n⁺-n^--p⁺ emitter-base junction and a narrow base, realized by an epitaxially grown emitter and a low-temperature thermal cleaning prior to the emitter growth. These features were found to decrease both an emitter junction capacitance (C_JE) and a carrier transit time in base (tau_B) in a great extent. The low-temperature CVD also contributed to the reduction of a collector junction capacitance (C_JC) by controlling a mono-poly interface in the collector. The effective decrease of C_JE, tau_B, and C_JC has increased a cutoff frequency (f_T) at a wide range of a collector current density (J_C). As a result, Jc of the SiGe HBT decreased more than 60% compared to published data, at a wide f_T range from 30 to 200 GHz.