On the effects of hot carriers on the RF characteristics of Si/SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistors

This work for the first time experimentally investigates the hot carrier effects on the RF characteristics (up to 30 GHz) of Si/SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT's). Reverse base-emitter voltage stresses were applied at room temperature on BiCMOS compatible, sub-micron transistors. The main observed degradation is a decrease of S/sub 21/. It was found that this degradation is minimized (maximized) when biasing at constant collector (base) current. These results may be valuable indications also for degradations induced by ionizing radiations.

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