Comparative Study on Reliability of InP/InGaAs Heterojunction Bipolar Transistors with Highly Zn- and C-Doped Base Layers

Abstract

AbstractThe reliability of InP/InGaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) with highly carbon-doped and zinc-doped InGaAs base layers grown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy has been investigated. The Raman spectroscopy reveals that the post-growth annealing for the carbon-doped InGaAs base improves the crystallinity to become as good as that of the zinc-doped InGaAs base. However, the photoluminescence intensity remains lower than that of the zinc-doped InGaAs even after the post-growth annealing. The current gains of the carbon- and zinc-doped base InP/InGaAs HBTs are 63 and 75, respectively, and they are affected by the base crystallinity. After the 15-min current stress test, the current gains decreased by 40 and 3% from the initial current gains for zinc- and carbon-doped base HBTs, respectively, are observed. These results indicate that the carbon-doped base HBT is much more reliable than that of zinc-doped base HBT, though it has a lower current gain.