COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING MICROELECTRONIC DEVICES SECTION 1

Design and Fabrication of a BJT

NAME: ABDULLAH ALSAWAD

ID# 33811

AHMAD MHD SAID AL HAMWI 35566 NIZAR DADOUCH 27120

Introduction
BJTs come in two types, or polarities, known as PNP and NPN based on the doping types of the three main terminal regions. An NPN transistor comprises two semiconductor junctions that share a thin p-doped anode region, and a PNP transistor comprises two semiconductor junctions that share a thin n-doped cathode region. In typical operation, the baseemitter junction is forward biased, which means that the pdoped side of the junction is at a more positive potential than the n-doped side, and the base collector junction is reverse biased. In an NPN transistor, when positive bias is applied to the baseemitter junction, the equilibrium is disturbed between the thermally generated carriers and the repelling electric field of the n-doped emitter depletion region. This allows thermally excited electrons to inject from the emitter into the base region. These electrons diffuse through the base from the region of high concentration near the emitter towards the region of low concentration near the collector. The electrons in the base are called minority carriers because the base is doped p-type, which makes holes the majority carrier in the base.

Background and History

A bipolar junction transistor (BJT or bipolar transistor) is a type of transistor that relies on the contact of two types of semiconductor for its operation. BJTs can be used as amplifiers, switches, or in oscillators. BJTs can be found either as individual discrete components, or in large numbers as parts of integrated circuits. Bipolar transistors are so named because their operation involves both electrons and holes. These two kinds of charge carriers are characteristic of the two kinds of doped semiconductor material. In contrast, unipolar transistors such as the field-effect transistors have only one kind of charge carrier. Charge flow in a BJT is due to bidirectional diffusion of charge carriers across a junction between two regions of different charge concentrations. The regions of a BJT are called emitter, collector, and base. A discrete transistor has three leads for connection to these regions. By design, most of the BJT collector current is due to the flow of charges injected from a highconcentration emitter into the base where there are minority carriers that diffuse toward the collector, and so BJTs are classified as minority-carrier devices.

Method and Theory:

In order to manufacture a good Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT) three important criteria must be taken into consideration: 1. Emitter Injection efficiency: the ratio of the injected emitter current to the total emitter current. In order to improve it, the device must be designed such as the base neutral width is smaller than the electron diffusion length Le. 2. Base transport factor: The ratio of the electron current reaching the base-collector junction to the current injected at the emitter-base junction. In order to make it approach unity the neutral base width must be small without falling into the trap of base width modulation and punch though. 3. Collector efficiency: it can be improved by reducing the lateral and vertical resistance of the collector (n+ buried layer). These criteria suggest that the base width must be small. Furthermore to avoid punch through, the collector doping must be low compared to the base doping. And of course the emitter doping must be high. Hence: Ne>>Nb>>NC . Another important factor in the design of BJTs is the base intrinsic resistance (near the base contact) the area under the base contact must be heavily doped (P+) in order to minimize it.

With these concepts in mind, a good BJT silicon transistor can be fabricated.

Design Criteria:
Simulate the fabrication of a silicon npn transistor with the following parameters. Device length = 2.2 m Emitter width = 0.2 m Base width = 0.1 m Collector width = 0.7 m Doping concentration Emitter = 4x1020 atoms cm-3 Base = 1x1018 atoms cm-3 Collector = 2x1016 atoms cm-3 Plot the donor and acceptor concentration profiles in the emitter, base, and collector regions of the transistor. Using device simulator Atlas, plot the VBE-IB characteristics of the BJT and extract hie of the transistor Plot the VCE-IC characteristics of the BJT and extract hfe of the transistor. Modify the device structure to increase hfe to be 5 times the present value.

Doping Profile:
As discussed previously, Ne>>Nb>>NC . hence the doping profile must resemble figure 1.

Figure 1

This type of profile can be achieved using either diffusing or implantation. Since the design criteria require a fairly small device, using implantation proved to be a difficult task. Hence diffusion was used instead. The first step is to diffuse boron into the substrate in a nitrogen environment to prevent oxidation, and then a thin emitter layer is deposited by implanting a layer of poly silicon with arsenic and slowly diffusing it onto the substrate. Further detail will follow in the next section of the project report.

Fabrication process:

Figure 2

The first step is to define a wafer with back ground doping such as Arsenic. This wafer is then mirrored vertically and an N+ region is created for the collector. This layer reduces the collector resistance and improves the collector efficiency:

Figure 3

The second step is to implant boron into the wafer in order to create a p-region. The doping of this region must be greater than the background doping and less than the emitter doping by at least one magnitude:

Figure 4

After creating the P-region, poly silicon was deposited onto the wafer to act as the emitter. This reduces contact resistance and improves the efficiency of the emitter. Furthermore this technique is very useful when a shallow emitter is required (figure 4). The poly silicon is implanted with arsenic. Etched and then diffused. (figure 5)

Figure 5

The final step is to anneal the device from defects reflect it across the Y axis and place and ohmic contacts for testing.

Figure 6

Testing the device

A good way to check the gain of a BJT and inspect whether the device is behaving in an ideal manner is to utilize a gummel-poon plot. The plot shows the recombination effects at low bias and the kirk/auger effects at high transport. This allows the designer to quickly realize a working device (figure 7).

Figure 7

After tuning the parameters of the device, the following gummel plot was achieved.

Figure 8

The Transistor output and input characteristics are also shown below:

Figure 9

Figure 10

The original gain is 10V/V at VCE=3V (close up available in the appendix) While after modifications the gain is 69V/V

An improvement of 10x was not achieved due to the non-ideal effects (kirk/auger) and the base width modulation. A heterojunction bjt may be more suitable due to the difference in the bandgaps of the the materials.

Appendix
CODE:
go athena # Establish initial grid and substrate material line x location=0.0 spacing=0.08 line x location=0.5 spacing=0.05 line x location=0.7 spacing=0.05 line x location=1.2 spacing=0.08 line x location=2.2 spacing=0.18 # line y location=0.0 spacing=0.01 line y location=0.1 spacing=0.02 line y location=0.5 spacing=0.05 line y location=.6 spacing=0.15 # init orientation=100 silicon c.arsenic=2e15 two.d structure outf=tmpr1.str two.d init inf=tmpr1.str flip.y implant arsenic energy=20 dose=1e16 diffuse time=3 temp=1000 struct outf=temp init inf=temp flip.y implant boron energy=1.5 dose=.60e14 diffuse time=2.0 temp=1000 t.final=920 nitrogen # Mask and implant the emitter deposit poly thick=.12 divis=5 implant arsenic energy=42 dose=10.5e15 etch poly right p1.x=1.4 deposite oxide thick=.12 divis=5 etch oxide righ p1.x=1.6 diffuse time=2.5 temp=950 t.final =960 c.boron=2e21 diffuse time=180 temp=600 nitrogen c.boron=2e21 etch oxide # Deposit and pattern the contact metal deposit aluminum thick=0.1 div=2 etch aluminum start etch cont etch cont etch done x=1.4 x=1.4 x=1.6 x=1.6 y=10. y=-10. y=-10. y=10.

structure reflect left # Define the electrodes electrode name=emitter x=0.0 electrode name=base x=2.0 electrode name=collector backside electrode name=base1 x=-2.0 # Define impurity characteristics in each material structure outfile=BJT.str go atlas

contact name=base1 common=base short # Material parameter and model specification material material=Si model bgn consrh # Initial solution solve init save outf=bjtex04_0.str tonyplot bjtex04_0.str -set bjtex04_0.set taun0=1e-7 taup0=1e-7 auger fldmob conmob

# Gummel plot method newton autonr trap solve vcollector=0.025 solve vcollector=0.1 solve vcollector=0.25 vstep=0.25 vfinal=2 name=collector solve vbase=0.025 solve vbase=0.1 solve vbase=0.2 log outf=InputChara.log solve vbase=0.3 vstep=0.05 vfinal=1 name=base tonyplot InputChara.log

#IC/VCE with constant IB #ramp Vb log off solve init solve vbase=0.025 solve vbase=0.05 solve vbase=0.1 vstep=0.1 vfinal=0.7 name=base

# switch to current boundary conditions contact name=base current # ramp IB and save solutions solve ibase=1.e-6 save outf=bjt_1.str master solve ibase=2.e-6 save outf=bjt_2.str master solve ibase=3.e-6 save outf=bjt_3.str master

# load in each initial guess file and ramp VCE load inf=bjt_1.str master log outf=bjtout_1.log solve vcollector=0.0 vstep=0.25 vfinal=5.0 name=collector

load inf=bjt_2.str master log outf=bjtout_2.log solve vcollector=0.0 vstep=0.25 vfinal=5.0 name=collector load inf=bjt_3.str master log outf=bjtout_3.log solve vcollector=0.0 vstep=0.25 vfinal=5.0 name=collector # plot results tonyplot -overlay quit bjtout_1.log bjtout_2.log bjtout_3.log

Beta extraction:

BETA=6.97E-5/1E-6= 69.7