Photo carrier generation in bipolar transistors

Author

Klootwijk, Johan H. ; Slotboom, Jan W. ; Peter, M.S. ; Zieren, Victor ; De Mooy, Dick B.

Author_Institution

Philips Res. Lab., Eindhoven, Netherlands

Volume

49

Issue

9

fYear

2002

fDate

9/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1628

Lastpage

1631

Abstract

Anomalous substrate currents have been observed in SiGe bipolar NPN-transistors, dependent on the collector bias, at high current levels. These currents appear to originate from light that is generated in the collector base junction when it is reverse biased. This light generates electron hole pairs in the n⁺ buried layer-substrate diode, yielding a considerable substrate current. This paper will show that these substrate currents can be used as a useful monitor for the occurrence of avalanche multiplication and high-level injection (Kirk effect) in heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs)

Keywords

Ge-Si alloys; avalanche breakdown; heterojunction bipolar transistors; semiconductor materials; Kirk effect; NPN-transistors; SiGe; anomalous substrate currents; avalanche multiplication; collector base junction; collector bias; current levels; electron hole pairs; heterojunction bipolar transistors; photo carrier generation; Bipolar transistors; Current measurement; Diodes; Germanium silicon alloys; Kirk field collapse effect; Laboratories; Monitoring; Silicon germanium; Substrates; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TED.2002.802616

Filename

1027849