Resolving Degradation Mechanism in Carbon and Beryllium Doped HBT’s Using Pulsed Mode Current Stress

Abstract

AbstractThe reliability of high performance carbon and beryllium-doped heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT’s) is investigated using a pulsed mode current stress. After the current stress, the collector current reduction (measured at a fixed Vbe) and the inverted collector current ratio change (measured at two different reverse Vbe biases) are used as measures of HBT degradation due to dopant acceptors migration. For carbon and beryllium doped HBT’s, degradation was found to be only significant beyond a threshold current density (Jth), showing that the carbon doped devices have a higher Jth than that of the Be-doped HBT's. Beyond the Jth, the device degradation is insensitive to the stress current density but depends on the total stress charge. As a result, the device degradation mechanisms of electric field assisted dopant and carrier recombination enhanced dopant migration can be distinguished under pulsed mode current stress.