Reliability of commercial InGaP/GaAs HBTs under high voltage operation

GSC has developed a high-performance, high-reliability, and manufacturable high breakdown voltage (HBV) InGaP/GaAs HBT process for power amplifiers of up to 10 V operation. Two major failure modes: sudden beta degradation and gradual beta drift, at normal operating conditions under high voltage bias were found. The associated activation energy is extracted about 1.1 eV and the projected MTTF to be 7/spl times/10/sup 6/ hours at 125/spl deg/C, which is sufficient to meet the stringent reliability requirement for infrastructure applications.