Abstract:
A thermally stabilized cascode heterojunction bipolar transistor (TSC-HB) having the current and power generation regions in separate temperature zones, each transistor collector in a cold zone connected directly and individually to an emitter terminal of a corresponding transistor in a hot zone, thereby limiting the current available to the emitter of the transistor in the hot zone. Such an interconnection of transistors prevents the transistor in the hot zone from drawing more current from other transistor sources when increases in temperature occur. This achieves thermal stability and prevents the transistors from overheating and burning out.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of the Invention 
     This invention refers generally to bipolar transistors and more specifically to a thermally stable cascode heterojunction bipolar transistor fabricated on GaAs or other III-V compound semiconductors being used as active devices in microwave and high speed digital circuits. 
     2. Description of the Related Art 
     High power microwave heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT) exhibit thermal instability, or thermal runaway, related to failures when operated under large direct current (dc) or radio frequency (RF) drive conditions. The basic cause of this instability is the negative temperature coefficient of the emitter-base turn-on voltage and the strong electrothermal feedback in devices with moderate to high thermal resistances. When a multi-finger HBT is biased from a single base voltage, as shown in FIG. 1, the electrothermal feedback can cause one of the emitter fingers to conduct most of the available current to the whole device and therefore create a “hot spot.” 
     Thermal instability in HBTs can be reduced by the use of ballast resistors in series with each emitter or base finger, or by thermal-shunt techniques. See, G, B. Gao et al.,  Emitter Ballasting Resistor Design for, and Current Handling Capability of AlGaAs/GaAs Power Heterolunction Bipolar Transistors,  IEEE Trans. Electron Dev., Vol. 38, pp. 185-196, 1991; W. Liu et el.,  The Use of Base Ballasting to Prevent the Collapse of Current Gain in AlGaAs/GaAs Heterolunction Bipolar Transistors,  IEEE Trans. Electron. Dev., Vol. 43, pp. 245-251. 1996; B. Bayraktaroglu et al.,  Very High Power Density CW Operation of AlGaAs/GaAs Microwave Heterojunction Bipolar Transistors,  IEEE Electron. Dev., Vol. 14, pp. 493-495, 1993. The stability achieved with ballast resistors usually come at the expense of reduced microwave performance, such as microwave gain and power-added efficiency (PAE). The reduction in power gain due to ballast resistors is especially undesirable at X-band and higher frequencies, where the power gain is already limited. PAE above 50% is more difficult to achieve at these frequencies, since the higher efficiency amplifier modes require high external device transconductance. Further, emitter ballast resistors can cause an increase in the “knee voltage”, which limits RF voltage swing amplitude and therefore PAE. Thermal shunt technique does not have the disadvantages associated with ballast resistors, and have demonstrated very high power density operation at 10 GHz with good PAE. However, thermal shunt HBTs have only marginal robustness under strong RF drive conditions. 
     In the prior art or conventional device, FIG. 1, the base current component of each subcell or transistor is a function of the local temperature. The local temperature, which is influenced by the power consumed in each subcell, is proportional to the collector current component. Because the temperature dependent current regulator (e-b junction) and the temperature generator (b-c junction) are in the same physical location, a strong positive electrothermal feedback exists. 
     The cascode operation of HBTs itself is not a new approach. Previously cascode HBT amplifiers were designed where common-emitter (CE) unit cells drive a common-base (CB) unit-cells of identical sizes. In this ordinary use of the cascode configuration multiple emitter CE cells provide the current for a similar sized multiple emitter CB cells. Therefore, the thermal instability is not eliminated. The present invention eliminates the thermal instability of HBTs by the use of a conceptually new cascode design. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The object of this invention is to produce a heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) having a high power gain and efficiency at microwave and millimeter wave frequencies while maintaining unconditional thermal stability, and provide robustness to electrical overstress (EOS). 
     These and other objectives are attained in the thermally stabilized cascode heterojunction bipolar transistor (TSC-HBT) by placing the current and power generation regions into separate temperature zones, thereby achieving thermal stability. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 shows the prior art where all terminals of the subcells are connected so as to form a transistor with a potential thermal instability. 
     FIG. 2 shows the electrical circuit of a thermally stable cascode heterojunction bipolar transistor (TSC-HBT) utilizing n-p-n transistors where the collector current of each common-emitter (CE) subcell is individually connected to the emitter of the corresponding common-base (CB) subcell. 
     FIG. 3 shows the measured characterictics of a TSC-HBT. 
     FIG. 4 shows the experimentally obtained maximum voltage and power dissipation as a function of cascode cell size, comparing the performance of the prior art and the preferred embodiment. 
     FIG. 5 shows an electrical circuit of a thermally stable heterojunction bipolar transistor (TSC-HBT) utilizing a p-n-p transistor. 
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     This invention describes a device for achieving thermal stability in heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT) by using cascode bias configuration. In the thermally stabilized cascode heterojunction bipolar transistor (TSC-HBT)  10 , FIG. 2, thermal runaway conditions are prevented by placing the current and power generation regions into separate temperature zones. In this invention the subcell is the lowest building block. A cell or stage can be either a common-emitter (CE) or common-base (CB), and contain subcells. The transistor is the cascode (TSC-HBT). This is unlike the conventional cascode designs where the collector current of the entire common-emitter (CE) cell is connected to the emitter of the entire common-base (CB) cell, the connection is made at the subcell level in a TSC-HBT  10 . 
     The TSC-HBT  10 , as shown in FIG. 2, is comprised of emitters  12  and  26 , collectors  14  and  28 , and bases  16  and  32 , is fabricated using known processing methods and may be either a p-n-p (as shown in FIG. 5) or or a n-p-n type (as shown in FIG.  2 ). In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, each emitter  26 , of the CB subcell  22  is provided with a separate current source from the CE stage  24 , a stage being defined as the equivalent of all subcells  18  and  22 . The current level in each emitter  26  of the CB cell or stage  27  is regulated by the CE cell or stage  24  by direct connection of the CE collector  14  current of subcell  18  to the emitter  26  of the CB subcell  22 . In a typical operation, the CE stage  24  is biased with low collector bias (1-3 V) since this bias is only needed to turn on the CE stage  24  and provide constant collector current. Because of this low bias condition, the CE stage  24  have a junction temperature too low to cause thermal runaway (Δ≡20° C.). Therefore, the temperature in the CE stage  24  is uniform. A uniform temperature in the CE cell  24  produces uniform current levels at the collector  14  of the CE stage  24 . This uniform current is distributed to the CB subcell  22  as the emitter  26  current. The current to each emitter  26  is therefore regulated individually by the CE stage  24 . Because the collector  28  bias is substantially higher in the CB cell  28  compared to the CE cell  24  (&gt;5X), the junction temperature is higher in the CB stage  27 . Even though temperature variations may exist between the emitter fingers  26  of the CB cell  27 , no thermal runaway can occur since the current of each emitter finger  26  is limited. Although the preferred embodiment has been described in the terms of two subcells  18  and  22 , with a single subcell  18  or  22  as the basic building block of the device, a multiple (2-500) subcells are used in practice. 
     For the TSC-HBT  10 , the CE stage  24 , which can be referred to as the cold zone, is the current regulator, which is kept at a low temperature zone (ΔT=20° C.) since it is biased at a low collector  14  voltage (1-3 V). In effect, i c1 =i c2  condition is maintained, where i c1  is βI bs1  and i c2  is βI b2 , where β is the current gain, I b1  and I b2  are the base currents of each subcell. The CB stage  27 , which is located in the hot zone and is responsible for power generation, maintains a uniform temperature profile since i c1 =i c2  and I c =αi c , where IC is the collector current in the CB stage  27  and α is the CB stage  27  current gain. The thermal runaway condition is avoided because the positive thermal feedback is eliminated between the current regulator (CE stage  24 ) and the power generator (CB stage  27 ). The two parts of the device are kept at two separate temperature zones. Any residual heat transfer from one part to the other is controlled by the cell design. 
     A direct comparison of the prior art and the TSC-HBT cells was made by measuring the maximum collector voltage, V, that could be applied at 41 kA/cm 2  current density on device fabricated together. It was observed that the conventional cascode devices all had “current crunch” characteristics and burned out due to thermal runaway, whereas all TSC-HBT devices were free from these effects up to the avalanche breakdown voltage at 14.5 V, as shown in FIG.  3 . The maximum voltage, V max , in volts. (i.e., the voltage at the onset of thermal runaway at 41 kA/cm 2  current density) shows an inverse relationship with the number of fingers contained in the cell for the conventional device, as shown in FIG.  4 . The TSC-HBT had voltage values independent of the number of emitter fingers. Maximum power,in watts, P max , was calculated by multiplying the maximum voltage across the CB subcell  22  and the collector  28  current, i.e., P max =(V max −V b2 )*I c , where v b2  is the voltage applied to base  32  of CB subcell  22  and I c  is the collector  26  current of the CB subcell  22 . It is seen that P max  value for the prior art device designs saturates at about 0.65 W as the number of emitter fingers  12  and  26  are increased from four to twelve, whereas a monotonic increase is seen for the TSC-HBT. The power handling capability of the twelve finger TSC-HBT is 300% higher than the prior art cascode HBT fabricated on the same wafer for 12-emitter cascode HBT. An even higher ratio is expected as larger devices are compared. The microwave performance of both the cascode types was identical. 
     In summary. it is demonstrated that TSC-HBTs can prevent thermal runaway conditions by individually regulating the emitter current of subcells in a power unit-cell. A direct comparison of devices fabricated on the same wafer shows that TSC-HBTs can dissipate 300% or more power than conventional devices by eliminating the negative electrochemical feedback effects. 
     Although the invention has been described in relation to an exemplary embodiment thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that still other variations and modifications can be affected in this preferred embodiment without detracting from the scope and spirit of the invention as described in the claims.