Fully Radiative Current Path Structure (FRACS) for sub-0.1 /spl mu/m emitter transistor

A new structure is proposed for bipolar transistors - FRACS (Fully Radiative Current Path Structure). A FRACS transistor has a line emitter and a cylindrical base and collector or a point emitter and a spherical base and collector. Device parameters of the FRACS transistor is obtained by extending the conventional one-dimensional transistor model to a two- or three-dimensional model. In this structure, base transit time is reduced as the emitter size is reduced by radiative collector current flow. Using this model, a general bipolar transistor with a shallow link base is found to increase the cutoff frequency as the emitter size is reduced. The Kirk effect is suppressed in this structure because of the small collector current density at the collector-base junction. The effect was experimentally examined. A cylindrical base was fabricated by thermal diffusion of boron to achieve the FRACS transistor. Cutoff frequency was observed to increase as the emitter size was reduced. Maximum cut-off frequency of 64 GHz was achieved by this transistor with a 25-nm thick base formed by rapid vapor-phase diffusion.<
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