Physical characteristics modification of a SiGe-HBT semiconductor device for performance improvement in a terahertz detecting system

Abstract

In order to improve the performance of a pre-designed direct conversion terahertz detector which is implemented in a 0.25 m-SiGe-BiCMOS process, we propose some slight modifications in the bipolar section of the SiGe device physical design. Comparison of our new proposed device and the previously reported device is done by SILVACO TCAD software simulation and we have used previous experimentally reported data to confirm our software simulations. Our proposed modifications in device structural design show a present device responsivity improvement of about 10% from 1 to 1.1 A/W while the bandwidth improvement is about 218 GHz. The minimum noise equivalent power at detector output is increased by about 14.3% and finally power consumption per pixel at the maximum responsivity is decreased by about 5%.

Analysis and design of a SiGe-HBT based terahertz detector for imaging arrays applications

“…As an example in Figure.9, there is a good matching between experiments and our simulations for prefabricated device. [10] Fig. 9.…”

“…In our previous works, we started with analysis of optoelectronic mixers made from III-V HBT circuits in order to obtain higher frequency response [12], or higher conversion gain, using structural design alteration [11]. In addition, we focused on SiGe-HBT circuits [10,13], to design Silicon compatible integrated circuits. In this study, in continuation of our recent works in SiGe-HBT, after explanations about detector design and implementation in section (2), in section(3), analysis of detector performance and theoretical viewpoints will be explained.…”