High-Frequency, Low-Noise Si Bipolar Transistor Fabricated Using Self-Aligned Metal/IDP Technology

Hiromi SHIMAMOTO
Takahiro ONAI
Eiji OHUE
Masamichi TANABE
Katsuyoshi WASHIO

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Electronics   Vol.E82-C    No.11    pp.2007-2012
Publication Date: 1999/11/25
Online ISSN: 
DOI: 
Print ISSN: 0916-8516
Type of Manuscript: Special Section PAPER (Special Issue on High-Frequency/High-Speed Devices for Information and Communication Systems in the 21st Century)
Category: Low Power-Consumption RF ICs
Keyword: 
silicon bipolar transistor,  noise figure,  optical communication,  wireless communication,  

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Summary: 
A high-frequency, low-noise silicon bipolar transistor that can be used in over-10 Gb/s optical communication systems and wireless communication systems has been developed. The silicon bipolar transistor was fabricated using self-aligned metal/IDP (SMI) technology, which produces a self-aligned base electrode of stacked layers of metal and in-situ doped poly-Si (IDP) by low-temperature selective tungsten CVD. It provides a low base resistance and high-cutoff frequency. The base resistance is reduced to half that of a transistor with a conventional poly-Si base electrode. By using the SMI technology and optimizing the depth of the emitter and the link base, we achieved the maximum oscillation frequency of 80 GHz, a minimum gate delay in an ECL of 11.6 ps, and the minimum noise figure of 0.34 dB at 2 GHz, which are the highest performances among those obtained from ion-implanted base Si bipolar transistors, and are comparable to those of SiGe base heterojunction bipolar transistors.