Modeling and characterization of SIPOS emitter and quasi-SIS emitter bipolar transistors

SIPOS (semi-insulating polycrystalline Si) emitter bipolar transistors have been fabricated with a common-emitter current gain of 8000 and a figure of merit (gain divided by intrinsic base sheet resistance) of 200 (kΩ/sq)^-1. The high gain is attributed to a relatively low interface recombination velocity of the emitter contact, as measured by photo-induced microwave reflectometry. The cutoff frequency is measured to be 250 MHz, the low value attributed to a large emitter contact resistance of the SIPOS emitter. The authors suggest that a new figure of merit-transconductance divided by emitter resistance-should be considered for the comparison of the high-frequency performances of high emitter efficiency bipolar transistors. A quasi-SIS semiconductor-insulator-semiconductor emitter bipolar with a poly-Si emitter and undoped SIPOS as an interfacial layer was also fabricated. By incorporating a field-enhancement factor in the SIPOS, the behavior of this transistor is successfully explained by a SIS emitter model. The ideality factor ratio in the Gummel plot is attributed to the different barrier heights of electrons and holes at the SiO₂/n-Si interface