High Performance SiGe Power HBTs for Portable Microwave Applications
L. Megala1, B. Devanathan2
1L.Megala, Assistant Professor/ECE, V.R.S college of Engineering & Technology, Arasur, Villupuram District, Tamilnadu, India.
2B.Devanathan, Lecturer/ECE, University college of Engineering, Kakuppam, Villupuram, Tamilnadu, India.
Manuscript received on March 11, 2013. | Revised Manuscript Received on March 12, 2013. | Manuscript published on March 25, 2013. | PP: 23-27 | Volume-1, Issue-6, April 2013. | Retrieval Number: F0240041613/2013©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Published By: Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: SiGe bipolar technology has matured to provide a less expensive alternative to III-V, while at the same time ensuring superior performance compared to silicon. SiGe bipolar transistors, due to the lower band gap of SiGe (compared to Silicon), combine high-drift velocities with lower recombination in the base to provide higher forward current gain. This material system is very much perfect for high-power RF applications. SiGe HBTs offer important potential advantages over HFETs in terms of high transconductance, controlled linearity, freedom from surface trapping effects and controllable tradeoff of between unity current gain cut-off frequency (ft ) and breakdown voltage. For high power applications, higher breakdown voltage and ft is necessary. Thus SiGe material system will have superior performance over other material systems. In this paper, we analyze the performance of SiGe HBTs for analog/RF applications. Improvements in terms of early voltage, intrinsic gain and junction breakdown voltage are noticed. Moreover ft and fmax for these devices show significant improvement making these devices an able candidate for future RF applications. SiGe HBT has been developed and verified by means of TCAD simulation.
Keywords: SiGe HBTs, HFETs, cut-off frequency, breakdown voltage, transconductance.