Bipolar transistors on thin SOI: concept, status and prospect

Traditional high speed bipolar transistors are not compatible with the thin silicon-on-insulator substrates that are used for low power-delay product CMOS manufacturing. This paper discusses an SOI-CMOS compatible vertical bipolar transistor, from its inception to experimental verification on 120 nm SOI. Unique electrical characteristics, such as breakdown behavior and substrate bias dependency, are examined in detail and correlated to simple theory. Future directions and prospects of complementary SOI-BiCMOS are outlined.