Experimental Investigation of the Effects of Reactor Neutron-Gamma Pulse Irradiation on SiGe HBTs Under Different Bias Conditions

Abstract

The degradation characteristics of silicon-germanium heterojunction bipolar transistors (SiGe HBTs) under different bias modes (forward, cutoff and saturation) during irradiation were reported after multiple pulsed neutron-gamma irradiation at room temperature. The radiation-sensitive parameters of the test samples, including base current IB, collector current IC and DC current gain β, were measured and compared before and after every reactor n-γ pulse irradiation. The test results show that IB increased with increasing fluence, and IC slightly increased in the low base-emitter voltage VBE region (approximately from 0.4 V to 0.5 V) and decreased in the high-VBE region (approximately VBE>0.5 V). Moreover, the degradation degree of the test samples was different under different bias conditions. The performance of the test samples under cutoff bias mode displayed the most serious degradation, while those under forward bias mode suffered minimum damage. Meanwhile, the time-dependent annealing characteristics of the DC current gain for SiGe HBTs at various bias conditions were compared and analyzed.

Simulation and analysis of inverse-mode operation of single event transient mechanisms on NPN-SiGe HBT

“…The forward current gain ( / I I C B ) of the designed device obtained is about 500. The gain is higher than that previously reported [1,[39][40][41]. The device with high gain is of interest for ensuring the effective operation of the SiGe HBT within an amplification circuit [42][43][44].…”

“…The silicon-germanium heterojunction bipolar transistor (SiGe HBT) has been widely used in microelectronics [1,2] due to its excellent performance at high frequencies and innovation in bandgap engineering [3]. SiGe HBT is of low cost, high yield, and large-scale integration [3][4][5][6].…”

Simple Modeling and Analysis of Total Ionizing Dose Effects on Radio-Frequency Low-Noise Amplifiers

“…This was attributed to the annealing effect in the device. as the X-ray irradiation time increased, which compensated for some performance loss, and the degree of recovery over a period may vary depending on the temperature and the irradiation time [39][40][41][42][43]. Table 1 summaries the TID-induced changes in performance metrics under different total doses.…”