This paper presents design and implementation of a dual-band LNA using a 0.35 #m SiGe HBT process for 0.9 GHz GSM and 2.4 GHz WLAN applications. PCB layout parasitic effects have a vital effect on circuit performance and are accounted for using electro-magnetic （EM） simulation. Design considerations of noise decoupling, input/output impedance matching, and current reuse are described in detail. At 0.9/2.4 GHz, gain and noise figure are 13/16 dB and 4.2/3.9 dB, respectively. Both S11 and S22 are below -10 dB. Power dissipation is 40 mW at 3.5 V supply.
Compared with BVcEo, BVcEs is more related to collector optimization and more practical significance, so that BVcEs × fT rather than BVcEo ×fT is employed in representing the limit of the product of the breakdown voltage-cutoff frequency in SiGe HBT for collector engineering design. Instead of a single decrease in collector doping to improve BVcEs × fT and BVcEo × fT, a novel thin composite of N- and P＋ doping layers inside the CB SCR is presented to improve the well-known tradeoff between the breakdown voltage and cut-off frequency in SiGe HBT, and BVCES and BVCEO are improved respectively with slight degradation in fTAs a result, the BVcEs × fT product is improved from 537.57 to 556.4 GHz.V, and the BVcEo ×fT product is improved from 309.51 to 326.35 GHz.V.
The thermal resistance matrix including self-heating thermal resistance and thermal coupling resistance is presented to describe the thermal effects of multi-finger power heterojunction bipolar transistors. The dependence of thermal resistance matrix on finger spacing is also investigated. It is shown that both self-heating thermal resistance and thermal coupling resistance are lowered by increasing the finger spacing, in which the downward dissipated heat path is widened and the heat flow from adjacent fingers is effectively suppressed. The decrease of self-heating thermal resistance and thermal coupling resistance is helpful for improving the thermal stability of power devices. Furthermore, with the aid of the thermal resistance matrix a 10-finger power heterojunction bipolar transistor （HBT） with non-uniform finger spacing is designed for high thermal stability. The optimized structure can effectively lower the peak temperature while maintaining a uniformity of the temperature profile at various biases and thus the device effectively may operate at a higher power level.
As is well known, there exists a tradeoff between the breakdown voltage BVcEO and the cut-off frequency fT for a standard heterojunction bipolar transistor （HBT）. In this paper, this tradeoff is alleviated by collector doping engineering in the SiGe HBT by utilizing a novel composite of P＋ and N- doping layers inside the collector-base （CB） space-charge region （SCR）. Compared with the single N-type collector, the introduction of the thin P＋ layers provides a reverse electric field weakening the electric field near the CB metallurgical junction without changing the field direction, and the thin N layer further effectively lowers the electric field near the CB metallurgical junction. As a result, the electron temperature near the CB metallurgical junction is lowered, consequently suppressing the impact ionization, thus BVcEO is improved with a slight degradation in fT. The results show that the product of fTXBVcEo is improved from 309.51 GHz.V to 326.35 GHz.V.
A method of non-uniform finger spacing is proposed to enhance thermal stability of a multiple finger power SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor under different power dissipations. Temperature distribution on the emitter fingers of a multi-finger SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor is studied using a numerical electro-thermal model. The results show that the SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor with non-uniform finger spacing has a small temperature difference between fingers compared with a traditional uniform finger spacing heterojunction bipolar transistor at the same power dissipation. What is most important is that the ability to improve temperature non-uniformity is not weakened as power dissipation increases. So the method of non-uniform finger spacing is very effective in enhancing the thermal stability and the power handing capability of power device. Experimental results verify our conclusions.
