Solid State Circuits Society

February 17, 2005

Our speaker was  Jayasimha Prasad (Maxim Integrated Products), and the topic of his presentation was
” SiGe Heterojunction Bipolar Technology and Applications“

Abstract:
In the past two decades, there has been a phenomenal growth in Silicon-Germanium (SiGe) Heterojunction Bipolar Transistor (HBT) technology. The devices have migrated from a mere laboratory curiosity to full-fledged manufacturing of highly dense integrated circuits. More and more commercial HBT circuits are being introduced into the market almost everyday. The unity-gain cutoff frequency (fT) and the maximum oscillation frequency (fmax) have reached record highs. SiGe HBTs have demonstrated fT and fmax of 350GHz and 340GHz respectively. Current Mode Logic (CML) ring oscillator gate delays have a hit a low of 3.3ps. What makes this technology even more interesting is that the HBT can be easily integrated into a standard CMOS flow, yielding a highly functional SiGe BiCMOS process capable of realizing analog, digital, RF and microwave circuits. These have become main-stream processes throughout the industry and they are also being offered by the well-known semiconductor foundries.

SiGe HBTs have found its presence in the least expensive consumer products like cell phones to the most expensive Giga-bit communication systems. The improved performance of the devices has resulted in impressive circuit results. Dynamic frequency dividers operating at 110GHz and oscillators running at 98GHz have been reported. SiGe power amplifiers with output power of 220watts and power-added efficiency of 46% has been demonstrated. In high-speed communication circuits, 50Gb/s 4:1 MUX/DMUX, 43Gb/s Clock and Data Recovery (CDR) have been shown with SiGe HBTs. This talk will focus on the physics, status of the technology, applications and future prospects of SiGe HBT technology.

Biography:
Prasad obtained his Ph.D in Electrical Engineering from Oregon State University, Corvallis. For the past twenty years, he has been engaged in developing high-speed GaAs and SiGe HBT technology. He has been with Tektronix for 12 years developing GaAs-based HBT technology for high-speed oscilloscopes. He was a Tektronix Fellow and he was the first in the world to demonstrate a 60GHz InGaP HBT IC technology with 28ps gate delay. During the past 9 years, he has been with National Semiconductor, Micrel Semiconductor and Maxim Integrated Products where he has developed SiGe BiCMOS processes for wireless and fiber optic applications which have resulted in several products. Prior to the HBT work, Prasad has developed E2PROM processes at National Semiconductor and contributed to VMOS processes at AMI Semiconductor. Prasad is a Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE Electron Devices Society. He is a member of the IEEE technical committees on Compound Semiconductor Devices, Compact Modeling and Education. He is also a member of the Technical Field Awards Committee. Prasad has served in the technical committees of BCTM and IEDM.

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