A short-term high-current-density reliability investigation of AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors

In high current and power density applications of AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT's), reliability is a critical issue. Therefore, in this letter we show results of a fundamental investigation on the temperature and current dependence of the fast initial rise of the dc-curren...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE electron device letters 1998-12, Vol.19 (12), p.469-471
Main Authors: Bovolon, N., Schultheis, R., Muller, J.-E., Zwicknagl, P., Zanoni, E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Current density
Gallium arsenide
Gold
Heterojunction bipolar transistors
MMICs
Performance gain
Stress
Temperature dependence
Testing
Voltage
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Summary:In high current and power density applications of AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT's), reliability is a critical issue. Therefore, in this letter we show results of a fundamental investigation on the temperature and current dependence of the fast initial rise of the dc-current gain (burn-in), which takes place during stress at current densities beyond those of today's applications. We find that the burn-in occurs at lower device junction temperatures (135/spl deg/C) than previously reported in literature, and that it depends linearly on the current density. An activation energy of 0.4 eV is extracted for the burn-in effect.
ISSN:0741-3106
1558-0563
DOI:10.1109/55.735749