IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 42, NO.

6, JUNE 1995 1059

Extraction of the InP/GaInAs Heterojunction

Bipolar Transistor Small-Signal Equivalent Circuit
Solon Jose Spiegel, Dan Ritter, R. A. H a m , A. Feygenson, and P. R. Smith

Abstract- An extraction technique for determining the small- equivalent circuit enclosed in the box in Fig. 1 are:
signal equivalent circuit model of an InP/GaInAs heterojunction
bipolar transistor is presented. The equivalentcircuit includes the (Z11,in Z12,in)
extrinsic base collector capacitance and extrinsic base resistance.
-&,in Z22,in
It is clearly indicated which elements are uniquely determined,
and which elements are estimated.

I. INTRODUCTION
where

A CCURATE extraction of the small signal equivalent

circuit of Heterojunction Bipolar Transistors (HBT’s)
is important for optimizing device performance. The most
commonly used extraction technique is numerical optimization
of the model generated s-parameters to fit the measured s
-parameters. It is well known, however, that optimization tech- z1 =Rb,in
niques may result in nonphysical values of the components,
and that the values of the elements are not unique. Alternative
extraction methods which ensure unique determination of as
many equivalent circuit elements as possible are therefore
of considerable importance. Several approaches for a more
accurate HBT equivalent circuit extraction were suggested. In the expression for a ( w ) given above a. is the gain at low
Trew er al. developed an optimization technique that makes frequencies, and rd = 7 1 + r2 is a delay time determined by
use of the emitter to collector time delay to constrain the ele-
a linear combination of the emitter depletion region transit
ment values [l]. Costa et al. described an analytical parameter time, and the base and collector transit times. We believe that
extraction technique for HBT’s that makes use of special test
the conventional definitions of 7 1 and 72 in bipolar transistors
structures and DC measurements to extract the extrinsic circuit
[3] may not be applicable to narrow base HBT’s where base
elements [ 2 ] . Pehlke et al. presented a parameter extraction transport is partially ballistic [ 5 ] . However, because W T d << 1
formalism employing analytically derived expressions for a
the above approximation can be used.
direct calculation of the equivalent circuit element values [3].
The z-parameters of the full equivalent circuit are:
In this publication we follow the approach of Pehlke et al.
to extract the equivalent circuit of an InP/GaInAs composite
collector HBT [4]. The main difference between our approach
and the method presented in [3] is that we use an equivalent
circuit in which the base collector capacitance is divided into
intrinsic and extrinsic components. This equivalent circuit is
more closely related to the physical structure of the device,
and provides a better fit to the measured s-parameters at high
frequencies.

11. ANALYSIS
where
The HBT small signal 7’-model equivalent circuit is shown
in Fig. 1. The z-parameters of the intrinsic section of the HBT
Manuscript received May 24, 1994; revised December 6, 1994. The review
of this paper was arranged by Associate Editor P. M. Solomon. Two approximations for the above expressions are used to
S. J. Spiegel and D. Ritter are with the Department of Electrical Engineer- extract the element values. First we note that
ing, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel.
R. A. Ha”, A. Feygenson, and P. R. Smith are with AT&T Bell
Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ 07974 USA.
IEEE Log Number 9410580.

0018-9383/95$04.00 0 1995 IEEE

 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 42, NO. 6, JUNE 1995

------- Calculated
5' calculated using Eq. 7
x

io' 10' 10'0 IO"

Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 1. Small circuit equivalent circuit of the HBT.
+
Fig. 2. Plot used to extract Cbc,zn Cbc,er.Measured data points, and
calculated curves using element values of Table I. One curve is exact. and
the other is plotted using (7).
due to the large output resistance of HBT's in the frequency

tix
range of interest. Using the above approximation one has
-7 I X

rz-
cbc,ex
Cbc,in
+jWCbc,exRb,in (4) 5 1.50 X

and
I X
1 1 -jw Cbc,exRb,in t \
-M- I X X X X
l+r l+a (1 + a)2
, "t x xxx
.3 I X

111. ELEMENTEXTRACTION
PROCEDURE
To extract the equivalent circuit the device s-parameters
are converted into y-parameters 161 and the y-parameters
of an "open" test structure are subtracted to eliminate the
shunt capacitance of the pads. The resulting y-parameters 0 IO 20 30 U)

are converted into z-parameters and s-parameters which are

used throughout the extraction procedure described below. To
obtain the extraction procedure several approximations are
made. The justification of the approximations is deferred to
Section V. The element extraction procedure is applied to
obtain the equivalent circuit of an InP/GaInAs HBT of the
type described in 141.
A. Base Collector Capacitance
The base collector junction capacitance, c b c = C b c , e z
cbc,in must be minimized in HBT's and it is therefore im-
portant to unambiguously determine its value. From (2) and
(3) one has
or using ( 5 )
1 B. Series Emitter Resistance and Emitter Resistance
Im ( 2 2 2 - ZZ1)M --
wcbc
+ WL,.
Equation (7) is identical to the expression obtained by Pehlke
et al. using an equivalent circuit with no extrinsic base
Frequency (GHz)
Fig. 3. Plot used to extract L,. Measured data points, and calculated curve
using element values of Table I.
collector capacitance 131. A plot of the measured values of
[-w Im ( 2 2 2 - 2 2 1 ) I p 1 as a function of the frequency is shown
in Fig. 2. It can be seen that the flat section of the plot extends
over a wide frequency range obtaining that C b c , e x C b c , i n = +
+ 17 fF.
From (7) one has
A plot of the right hand side of (8) in the high frequency range
using the measured z-parameters and the extracted value of
c b c is given in Fig. 3. The relatively high value of Lc = 106
pH is due to pad series parasitics which were not eliminated
from the measured data.
(7) The emitter series resistance and junction differential resis-
tance can be obtained from 2 1 2 because
212 =23 + j w c b q e x Z 2 R b , i n [I - a'(w)] (9)
SPIEGEL ef al.: EXTRACTION OF THE InP/GalnAs HETEROJUNCTION BIPOLAR TRANSISTOR 1061

h
1.2

1.1 1
X
I
Pa
v

3
\
h

N"

E-
&
I OS t x

0.4 '
10' I 0' IO'O
I

Frequency (Hz) Frequency (W

+
Fig. 4. Plot used to extract R, Re?.Measured data pints, and calculated fig. 6. Plot used to extract r d . Measured data points, and calculated curves
curve using element values of Table 1. using element values of Table I. One curve is exact, and the other is plotted
using (13).

(as justified in Section IV) that the dominant time constant

+
is Rc(Cbc,in cb(bc,ez) and ( 1 1) can be approximated as:

h
C
v

!xu using the above approximate expression of a ( w ) and recalling

+ +
that w(ReCbe RcCbc) << 1 one obtains
8

Equation (13) indicates that the transit time can be obtained

0 m 100 im 200
only if the base emitter and base collector RC time constants
are known. The measured values of Im(Z12 - 2 2 1 / 2 2 2 -
Z 2 1 ) / w are given in Fig. 6. It can be seen that there is a large
flat section in the plot, from which the time constant appearing
Fig. 5. Emitter current dependence of Re + Ree. in the right hand side of (13) is found to be about 0.9 psec.
The obtained time constant can be compared with the
and at sufficiently low frequencies one has
standard expression 1 / 2fT + +
~ = r d CbeRe Cbc(Rc4-Re 4-
Re,). In Fig. 7 h2l is plotted versus frequency, and the
Re ( 2 1 2 ) z Re, + Re. (10) extrapolated value of f~ is found to be 145 GHz thus 1/2
T fT = 1.1 psec. The difference between 1/27rfT and the time
In Fig. 4 the real part of 2 1 2 is plotted as a function of +
constant obtained from Fig. 6 is (Re Ree)Cbc= 0.2 psec,
the frequency and it can be seen that at low frequencies in agreement with the values of cb,,and Re + Re, that were
the values of 2 1 2 are frequency independent obtaining that extracted above.
+
Re Re, = 10 ohms. In Fig. 5 the extracted value of
+ +
Re Re, = (nKT/qI,) Re, is plotted versus the inverse D. Base Resistance and Base and Emitter Inductance
emitter current, I,. The value of Re, is found to be 7 R and
the ideality factor, n, equals 1.0. The intrinsic and extrinsic base resistance, and the base
and emitter inductance are obtained by numerical optimization
of the model generated s-parameters to fit the measured 3-
C. Transit Time
parameters. To constrain the values of the four elements three
We consider the expression equations are used. An additional parameter needed for the
z12 - 221 -
optimization procedure is the ratio, a, between the extrinsic
(.'(U)
and intrinsic base collector capacitance which is estimated as
222 - 221 1 + (Rc+jwLc)(l+ .)Y2'
(1 1)
(emitter mesa area)/(base mesa area - emitter mesa area).
Evaluating the various time constants appearing in the de- The first two equations used to constrain the element
nominator for anticipated element value ranges it is found values are obtained from the real and imaginary parts of the
1062 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 42, NO. 6, JUNE 1995

U)

X
X I
- x x x
5-
P X

Frequency (Hz)
0. I 1 10 la) 1000
(a)
Frequency (GHz)
Fig. 7. hzl versus frequency FT was obtained by extrapolation.

TABLE I
EXTRACTEDELEMENTSOF THE HBT EQUIVALENT
CIRCUI?
Element Value Extraction Method
Cbc.tz -k Cbc.zn 17 fF direct
a= Cbc.ez/Cbc,zn estimated from device geometry
Re 3fl direct
Ret? 7 61 direct
E
Td 0.56 psec direct, using estimated values of R, I

and c b c
Cbe 100 fF estimated from device geometry
R, 4R estimated from device geometry
LC 106 pH direct
42 6 1 numerical optimization with constrains
Frequency (GHz)
%,ex 7 61 numerical optimization with constrains
Le 108 pH numerical optimization with constrains (b)
Lb 94 pH numerical optimization with constrains
200
RO 1 M 61 estimated X
x x

expression

120

and using (5) one has .

3
h
X

g- 80
'

EE5l
I
211 - X

40 calculated

The third equation used to constrain the element values is

Frequency (GHz)
obtained by evaluating the expression given in (9) for the
imaginary part of 2 1 2 . For the expected element values range (C)
it is found that Fig. 8. Three plots used to constrain the values of Rb,2n, L, and L,.
Measured data points, and calculated curves using element values of Table I.

In Fig. 8(a)-(c) the above expressions are plotted and it can
be seen that the flat section of the curve extends over a wide
frequency range. The optimization procedure is the following.
The value of Rb,ex is estimated and its value is used to
obtain the rest of the elements in (14)-(16). The procedure is
repeated until the best fit to sll is achieved. The results of the
optimization procedure using the above constrains are given
in Table I. It was verified that the results are indeed unique.
The high value of the series inductance is due to the pad series
parasitics which were not eliminated from the measured data.
E. Collector Series Resistance
Using an equivalent circuit with no extrinsic base collector
capacitance the collector series and output resistance can be
extracted from Re(Zz2 - 221) at high and low frequencies
respectively [3]. When the extrinsic base collector capacitance
is added to the equivalent circuit the expressions become more
SPIEGEL et 01.: 1063

2
CA

1 IO

I
IOW
,
1 IO

N
os
CA

I' I
0

IO' I 0' I 0' Id I0' IO' I 0'

Frequency(MHz) Frequency (MHz)

(C) (4
Fig. 9. Measured and calculated s-parameters. The s-parameters are calculated using an equivalent circuit with no extrinsic base collector capacitance (a =
0). and an equivalent circuit which includes the extrinsic base collector capacitance (a = 1.2).

complex. At high frequencies where w2Cbc,inRi>> 1 one can G. Base Emitter Capacitance
show that The base emitter capacitance cannot be extracted from
aRb,in the measured s-parameters, and is estimated using device
fi: R,
- 221) ~

+
(1 a)2
Unfortunately the measured data points of Re(Z22 - 2 2 1 )
are scattered and (17) cannot be used here to obtain R,. We
therefore estimate the collector series resistance by multiplying
the extracted emitter series resistance by the ratio between
the collector contact area and the emitter contact area. Since
the resistivity of both the collector and emitter contact layers
is less than 1 ohdsquare we assume that the emitter and
collector series resistance are predominantly due to the contact
resistance.
F. Collector Output (Isolation) Resistance
At low frequencies Pehlke et al. use an expression equiv-
alent to
Ro M [w2cb,2Re ( 2 2 2 - 2 2 1 ) I - l
to obtain the collector output resistance [3]. For the equivalent
circuit considered here (18) was found not to be valid for the
range of expected element values. We are therefore unable to
extract Ro, and it is estimated arbitrarily.
(17) geometry. The dimensions of the emitter mesa are 4 pm x
10 pm and the depletion layer thickness is about 400 A for
the given doping level in the emitter of 2 x 1017
obtaining Cbe ~ 1 0 fF.0 Note that the diffusion capacitance
is not included in the base emitter capacitance because the
base transit time is included in the delay time, T d .
Iv. CALCULATED VERSUS MEASURED
S-PARAMETERS
The values of the equivalent circuit elements are summa-
rized in Table I. The elements in Table I are divided into
three groups: elements extracted directly and uniquely from
the measured s-parameters, elements extracted uniquely by
numerical optimization using constrains described in the text,
and estimated elements. The s-parameters calculated using the
(18)
parameters given in Table I are shown in Fig. 9(a)-(d), together
with the device s-parameters. A good fit is obtained. Also
shown are the calculated s-parameters of the equivalent circuit
with no external base collector capacitance (a = O), and it can
be seen that the data fits better to the circuit which includes
the extrinsic base collector capacitance.
1064
TABLE I1
TIMECONSTANTS OF THE EQUIVALENT
CIRCUIT
RcCbc 0.068 psec
Re C b e 0.3 psec
+
(Re Ree)Cbc 0.17 psec
Td 0.56 psec
total 1.1 nsec
v. JUSTIFICATIONOF THE APPROXIMATIONS
The approximations that were made in order to obtain the
extraction procedure are based on anticipated component value
ranges, however, due to the complexity of the expressions we
were unable in most cases to fully justify the approximations
analytically. In fact, during the process of developing the
extraction method some approximations that seemed quite
reasonable on first glance lead to significant errors, which
were discovered by testing the approximations numerically.
The numerical testing of the approximations is carried out
using the component values given in Table I. Because the
approximations are justified only for the element values of
Table I we recommend to verify the approximations whenever
the extraction method is used. [In particular, (3).] A convenient
method is to use as an input to the extraction method the
calculated s-parameters of the equivalent circuit, checking
whether the method returns the equivalent circuit elements.
The justification of the approximations is included in Figs.
2-8, as described below.
In Fig. 2 the z-parameters of the equivalent circuit (cal-
culated using the element values of Table I) were used to
plot [-U Im ( 2 2 2 - 2 2 1 ) ] - ~ once with no approximations and
once using the approximation given in (7). It can be seen
that (7) is a good approximation at frequencies higher than
1 GHz. To check the validity of (8) its right hand side was
calculated using the z-parameters of the equivalent circuit and
verified to equal L, in the flat section of the plot, as is shown
in Fig. 3. As shown in Fig. 4, (10) is valid at frequencies
lower than 10 GHz. The approximations that lead to (1 3) can
be seen in Fig. 6 to be justified up to a frequency of about
10 GHz. The approximation in Section I1 are justified in Fig.
8(a)-(c) by comparing the calculated curves to the approximate
expressions given in ( 15)-( 16).
VI. ACCURACYOF THE EXTRACTED
TRANSIT TIME
The transit time sets the upper limit for the value of f~ for
a given layer structure. It is therefore important to extract its
value accurately, and to separate it from the RC time constants.
Using the extraction method presented here the transit time is
not uniquely determined because possible errors in the values
of estimated elements affect the extracted transit time. In order
to estimate the uncertainty in the value of the transit time
the time constants of the equivalent circuit are summarized
in Table 11. It can be seen that a correct estimate of the
base emitter capacitance is essential for a precise extraction
of the transit time using (13). Due to the small base collector
capacitance in our device the possible error in the estimated
value of the collector series resistance does not cause a large
error in the extracted transit time.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 42, NO, 6, JUNE 1995
VII. SUMMARY
An HBT equivalent circuit extraction method from the mea-
sured s -parameters was presented. The small signal equivalent
circuit includes the extrinsic base collector capacitance. The
extraction method is similar to the method presented in [3], but
several important differences are found due to the presence of
the extrinsic base collector capacitance. Special care was taken
to clearly indicate which elements can be uniquely determined,
and which elements must be estimated.
REFERENCES
I ] R. J. Trew, U. K. Mishra, W. L. Pribble, and J. F. Jensen, “A parameter
extraction technique for heterojunction bipolar transistors,” in IEEE
Microwave Theory Tech. Dig., 1989, pp. 897-899.
21 D. Costa, W. U. Liu, and J. S. Harris, “Direct extraction of the
AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistor small signal equivalent
circuit,” IEEE Trans. Electron Devices, vol. 38, pp. 2018-2023, Sept.
1991.
31 D. R. Pehlke and D. Pavlidis, “Evaluation of the factors determining
HBT high frequency performance by direct analysis of S-Parameter
data,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory, vol. 40, pp. 2367-2373, Dec.
1992.
[4] A. Feygenson et al., “A 144 GHz InP/GaInAs composite collector
heterojunction bipolar transistor,” in IEDM Tech. Dig., 1992, pp. 75-78.
[5] D. Ritter, R. A. Hamm, A. Feygenson, and P. R. Smith, “Role of hot
electron base transport in abrupt emitter InP/GaInAs HBT’s,” Appl.
Phys. k r t . , vol. 64, pp. 2988-2989, May 1994.
[6] K. C. Gupta, R. Grag, and R. Chandra, Computer Aided Design of
Microwave Circuits. Norwood, MA: Artech House, 1981, p. 34.
Solon Jose Spiegel was born in Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil, in 1966. He received the BSc. degree in
electrical engineering from the University Gama
Filho in 1990, and the M.Sc. degree in electrical
engineering from the ME (Military Institute of
Engineering) in 1992.
Since 1993, he has been with the Department
of Electrical Engineering at the Technion-Israel
Institute of Technology. His current interests are in
the area of modeling and characterization of HBT,
HEMT, and MESFET technologies and design of
GaAs and InP MMIC
Dan Ritter received the BSc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. in electrical engineering
from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in 1982, 1985, and 1989,
respectively. From 1989 to 1992, he was a consultant at AT&T Bell Laborato-
ries, Murray Hill, NJ. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of
Electrical Engineering at the Technion. His research interest is in InP-based
electronic and optoelectronic devices.
R. A. Hamm, photograph and biography not available at the time of
publication.
A. Feygenson, photograph and biography not available at the time of
publication.
P. R. Smith, photograph and biography not available at the time of publi-
cation.