The damage effect and mechanism of the bipolar transistor induced by the intense electromagnetic pulse

Abstract

A study of the internal damage process and mechanism of the typical n+-p-n-n+ structure bipolar transistor induced by the intense electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is carried out in this paper from the variation analysis of the distribution of the electric field,the current density and the temperature. Research shows that the damage position of the bipolar transistor is different with the different magnitude of the injecting voltage,when the magnitude of the injecting voltage is low the damage will appear firstly near the collector region under the center of the emitter region,and when the magnitude of the injecting voltage is sufficiently high the damage will appear firstly at the edge of the base near the emitter due to the breakdown of the PIN structure composed of the base-epitaxial layer-collector. Adopting the data analysis software,the relation equation between the device damage power P and the pulse width T under different injecting voltage is obtained. Owing to the variety of the device damage energy,it is demonstrated that the empirical formulas of the intense electromagnetic pulse P=AT-1 (A is a constant) is modified to P=AT-1.4 for the bipolar transistor.

Hardening measures for bipolar transistors against microwave-induced damage

“…Different HPM sources may cause a disruption or destruction of the semiconductor components of the system. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] At the same time, the higher safety and stability demands of electronic systems require further development of the protection measures against electromagnetic interference. The need for suitable hardening measures has emerged during the past several years, and some attempts have been made to protect the system from these effects.…”

Analysis of the damage threshold of the GaAs pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor induced by the electromagnetic pulse

“…Generally, the EMP-induced damage effect on the device is divided into three cases by the pulse width: [3,4,11] for the short pulse on the assumption that the device is adiabatic, for the long pulse with considering heat dissipation, and for the steady state with thermal equilibrium established. Figure 5 shows the variation rules of the damage threshold with the pulse width under different phases.…”

Damage effect and mechanism of the GaAs pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor induced by the electromagnetic pulse

“…At present, in the study of the damage effect on the semiconductor device with the EMP event, researchers always take the step voltage pulse as the EMP signal model. [6,8,12] Figure 2 shows the simulation circuit in this study. The GaAs PHEMT device is injected by the step voltage pulse with a rising time of 1ns and an amplitude of 6 V on the gate.…”

“…Experiment results showed that the bipolar devices in the LNA are most vulnerable to the damage by the external electrical stress. [2] In the past few years, a significant number of studies have been carried out to investigate the damage induced by the EMI on the bipolar devices, [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] which provides a certain theoretical basis for the electromagnetic assessment and hardening design.…”