Impact of Ballast Resistor Implementations on Linearity and RF Performance of Common-Base SiGe Power HBTs

The influence of ballasting resistor implementations on the RF performance (both small-signal and large-signal) and on the linearity of common-base (CB) SiGe power HBTs is experimentally investigated. It is demonstrated that higher RF performance and better linearity can be achieved from CB SiGe HBTs by using emitter ballasting scheme than using base ballasting scheme.