Title :
Large-signal modeling and study of power saturation mechanisms in heterojunction bipolar transistors
Author :
Frankel, M.Y. ; Pavlidis, D.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Michigan Univ., Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Abstract :
A harmonic-balance-based large-signal model of the heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) suitable for microwave circuit design and simulation has been developed. Equivalent circuits were extracted from measured small-signal S-parameters by equivalent circuit fitting and used in a harmonic-balance-based simulator. Modeled power and gain results were in good agreement with directly measured characteristics. The power saturation mechanisms have been established in terms of current/voltage amplitudes and power-dependent equivalent circuit elements. Saturation has been shown to be due to the signal-voltage swing entering the cutoff or saturation regions with the resulting loss of current gain. It is pointed out that the model can accurately predict experimentally measured AlGaAs/GaAs HBT power characteristics.<>
Keywords :
III-V semiconductors; aluminium compounds; gallium arsenide; heterojunction bipolar transistors; semiconductor device models; solid-state microwave devices; HBT; current/voltage amplitudes; equivalent circuit fitting; harmonic balanced model; harmonic-balance-based simulator; heterojunction bipolar transistors; large signal models; microwave circuit design; power saturation mechanisms; power-dependent equivalent circuit elements; semiconductors; Circuit simulation; Circuit synthesis; Equivalent circuits; Gain measurement; Gallium arsenide; Heterojunction bipolar transistors; Power measurement; Predictive models; Scattering parameters; Voltage;
Conference_Titel :
Microwave Symposium Digest, 1991., IEEE MTT-S International
Conference_Location :
Boston, MA, USA
Print_ISBN :
0-87942-591-1
DOI :
10.1109/MWSYM.1991.146943