New degradation mechanism of GaAs HBT induced by Hot carriers

핫 캐리어에 의한 GaAs HBT의 새로운 열화 메카니즘

AlGaAs/GaAs HBTs are developed well enough to be commercialized as an active device in optical transmission system, but there remains the unanswered questions about reliability. In this paper we applied the reverse constant current stress at the high voltage in avalanche region for a long time to find out a new degradation mechanism of junctrion I-V. The unction off-set voltage at which the current vanishes to zero was shifted to the negative direction of applied bias due to the increment of leakage current as the stress time increases. It was identified that the degradation was induced by the hot carriers which were generated at space charge region and trapped at the interface between GaAs base and the passivation nitride enhancing the electric field across the nesa edge.