TY - JOUR
T1 - SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistors and circuits toward terahertz communication applications
AU - Rieh, Jae Sung
AU - Jagannathan, Basanth
AU - Greenberg, David R.
AU - Meghelli, Mounir
AU - Rylyakov, Alexander
AU - Guarin, Fernando
AU - Yang, Zhijian
AU - Ahlgren, David C.
AU - Freeman, Greg
AU - Cottrell, Peter
AU - Harame, David
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received May 5, 2003. This work was supported in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under SPAWAR Contract N66001-02-C-8014.
PY - 2004/10
Y1 - 2004/10
N2 - The relatively less exploited terahertz band possesses great potential for a variety of important applications, including communication applications that would benefit from the enormous bandwidth within the terahertz spectrum. This paper overviews an approach toward terahertz applications based on SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology, focusing on broad-band communication applications. The design, characteristics, and reliability of SiGe HBTs exhibiting record fT of 375 GHz and associated f max of 210 GHz are presented. The impact of device optimization on noise characteristics is described for both low-frequency and broad-band noise. Circuit implementations of SiGe technologies are demonstrated with selected circuit blocks for broad-band communication systems, including a 3.9-ps emitter coupled logic ring oscillator, a 100-GHz frequency divider, 40-GHz voltage-controlled oscillator, and a 70-Gb/s 4:1 multiplexer. With no visible limitation for further enhancement of device speed at hand, the march toward terahertz band with Si-based technology will continue for the foreseeable future.
AB - The relatively less exploited terahertz band possesses great potential for a variety of important applications, including communication applications that would benefit from the enormous bandwidth within the terahertz spectrum. This paper overviews an approach toward terahertz applications based on SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology, focusing on broad-band communication applications. The design, characteristics, and reliability of SiGe HBTs exhibiting record fT of 375 GHz and associated f max of 210 GHz are presented. The impact of device optimization on noise characteristics is described for both low-frequency and broad-band noise. Circuit implementations of SiGe technologies are demonstrated with selected circuit blocks for broad-band communication systems, including a 3.9-ps emitter coupled logic ring oscillator, a 100-GHz frequency divider, 40-GHz voltage-controlled oscillator, and a 70-Gb/s 4:1 multiplexer. With no visible limitation for further enhancement of device speed at hand, the march toward terahertz band with Si-based technology will continue for the foreseeable future.
KW - BiCMOS integrated circuits
KW - Communication systems
KW - Heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs)
KW - High-speed integrated circuits
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U2 - 10.1109/TMTT.2004.835984
DO - 10.1109/TMTT.2004.835984
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:6944252130
VL - 52
SP - 2390
EP - 2408
JO - IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques
JF - IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques
SN - 0018-9480
IS - 10
ER -