Semiconductor Alloy Engineering for High-Speed Devices
Abstract
In the last ten years, high-speed (10- to 100-Gigahertz) devices have been tested in myriad operating modes and geometries. The goal of these efforts have been to develop efficient discrete elements that can be readily fabricated into reliable systems with high production yield. While the tried and true silicon semiconductor continues to be the workhorse of the industry, its relatively high effective mass begins to make it less attractive than some of the III-V compounds (e.g., GaAs, InP, and certain alloys) once design frequencies are high. Many of the new device designs call for heterojunctions (e.g., tunneling junctions in hot electron transistors), high mobility channels (e.g., quantum well structures) and other special characteristics. The question of optimum materials selection for these multimaterial structures is nontrivial. In this report, we address only a subset of questions bearing on materials selection; however, these questions are central to high-speed performance. The major question is, which materials offer the best set of performance-limiting parameters for the device's active transport region (usually the base)? The number of possible materials from which to select is enormous: the compounds and alloys made from the cations, aluminum, gallium, indium, and the anions phosphorous, arsenic, and antimony. Thus, predictions of an accurate theory can serve to reduce greatly the number of experiments needed to optimize performance. Keywords: Semiconductors.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 1988
- Accession Number
- ADA200356
Entities
People
- A. Sher
- A.-b. Chen
- Siddhartha Krishnamurthy
Organizations
- SRI International