Compound emitter heterojunction bipolar transistor

Abstract

A compound emitter heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) structure that incorporates an additional heterojunction within the emitter for minority carrier confinement has been proposed. In this new device configuration, the single wide band-gap emitter layer in a conventional HBT is replaced by two sub-layers of wide band-gap material, with the sub-layer nearer the base having a narrower band-gap. By means of numerical simulations, the compound emitter HBT was found to perform better than comparable conventional HBTs. With the AlGaAs(n)/GaAs heterostructure system, the optimum compound emitter HBT structure was found to be Al0.3Ga0.7As(n)-Al0.2Ga0.8As(n)/GaAs with grading at the two hetero-interfaces. It has a low turn-on voltage that is almost identical to that of a homojunction GaAs bipolar transistor with similar doping conditions. Compared with a conventional single emitter layer Al0.3Ga0.7As/GaAs HBT, the optimum compound emitter HBT has an enhancement in the current gain by approximately 2 folds, an improvement in the uniform current gain region from 2 to 4 decades of collector current density, and a slight increase in the unity-gain cut-off frequency fT by about 7%.