The maximum operating region in SiGe HBTs for RF power amplifiers

Author

Inoue, A. ; Nakatsuka, Shoko ; Hattori, R. ; Matsuda, Y.

Author_Institution

High Frequency & Opt. Semicond. Div., Mitsubishi Electr. Corp., Itami, Japan

Volume

2

fYear

2002

Firstpage

1023

Abstract

Microwave waveforms of SiGe HBTs have been directly measured. The maximum operating region has been experimentally investigated by sweeping the load lines and power of the input signal. The device is found to operate beyond the conventional BVceo, while GaAs HBTs cannot survive at that voltage. The conventional BVceo is found to limit the average Vc of the maximum load lines, but has no influence on the peak voltage. Another BVceo measured with a voltage generator is proposed to represent the avalanche breakdown instead of the conventional one.

Keywords

Ge-Si alloys; avalanche breakdown; heterojunction bipolar transistors; power amplifiers; radiofrequency amplifiers; semiconductor device breakdown; semiconductor materials; RF power amplifier; SiGe; SiGe HBT; avalanche breakdown; maximum operating region; microwave waveform; voltage generator; Gallium arsenide; Germanium silicon alloys; Microwave devices; Microwave measurements; Power amplifiers; Radio frequency; Radiofrequency amplifiers; Silicon germanium; Virtual colonoscopy; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Symposium Digest, 2002 IEEE MTT-S International

ISSN

0149-645X

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7239-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MWSYM.2002.1011805

Filename

1011805