Institut für Integrierte Systeme

Integrated Systems Laboratory

Bipolar Transistor
HS 2019

1 Introduction
In this exercise we want to simulate the IV characteristics of a bipolar transistor and draw the
Gummel plot and current gain. Additionally, the device shall be optimized with the help of
simulation by changing the base doping.

The bipolar transistor is one of the key devices in discrete and integrated circuits. Modifi-
cations are being used in power electronics (IGBTs). In integrated circuits fast switching times
are realized by bipolar transistors; here CMOS and bipolar technologies are integrated on chip
(BiCMOS).
A bipolar transistor is a pnp- or a npn-structure, where each region has an electrical contact. The
middle region is very thin which enables the interaction of the two pn-junctions (that’s why a
bipolar transistor is more than the series connection of two diodes).
In Fig. 1 the structure of a pnp-transistor is shown schematically.

Figure 1: Principle structure of a pnp-transistor.

The heavily doped p-region (p+ ) is called emitter, the moderately doped n-layer is called base,
and the lowly doped p-region is the collector. We denote by IK the current which flows into the
collector and by VK the potential at the collector contact. Base and emitter quantities are labeled
likewise. Currents can be split in electron and hole contributions, e.g. IK = IK,n + IK,p . Kirchhoff’s
law connects all currents,
IE + IB + IK = 0 .
For voltages between two contacts we use the notation VEB = VE − VB .
The emitter injection efficiency factor is the hole contribution of the emitter current (majority
carriers),
γ = IE,p /IE .
As the emitter is heavily p-doped, the current is made up of holes almost exclusively, i.e. γ ≈ 1.
The base transport factor is the part of the emitter hole current that reaches the collector,

αT = −IK,p /IE,p ,
it is also approximately 1. The common-base current gain is the product of both,

α0 = γαT .

Hence the collector current can be written as

IK = α0 IE + IK,n , (1)

where IK,n is the leakage current of the reversed-biased base-collector junction.

For the computation of the IV-characteristics we make the following simplifications:

• We assume abrupt transitions between space charge regions and neutral regions.
• p- and n-regions are homogeneously doped.
• Generation and recombination in the space charge region are neglected.
• The concentration of majority carriers is assumed to be constant in each neutral region.

• The series resistance of the neutral regions is neglected.

In particular, we use the boundary values of the minority carrier densities at the edges of the space
charge regions,
nE (0) = n0E exp (qVEB /kB T )
pB (0) = p0B exp (qVEB /kB T )
(2)
pB (W ) = p0B exp (qVKB /kB T )
nK (W ) = n0K exp (qVKB /kB T )
Here we have defined coordinates in such a way that the width of the space charge layers has been
neglected, i.e. we consider them small compared to W .
With these boundary conditions and with the general solution of the drift-diffusion equation √ in the
neutral regions (n − n0p = C− exp (−x/Ln ) + C+ exp (x/Ln ) with the diffusion length Ln = Dn τn )
one obtains
     
qVEB x
nE (x) − n0E = n0E exp − 1 exp ,
kB T Ln
p0B
           
qVKB x qVEB W −x
pB (x) − p0B = exp − 1 sinh + exp − 1 sinh ,
sinh (W/Lp ) kB T Lp kB T Lp
     
qVKB W −x
nK (x) − n0K = n0K exp − 1 exp .
kB T Ln
(3)
From this we obtain the emitter currents
qDn An0E
   
dnE qVEB
2IE,n = qDn A (0) = exp −1 ,
dx Ln kB T
0
        
dpB qDp ApB qVEB W qVKB
IE,p = −qDp A (0) = exp − 1 cosh + 1 − exp ,
dx Lp sinh (W/Lp ) kB T Lp kB T
(4)
and the collector currents by simply interchanging E with K in above expressions. A is the active
cross-sectional area of the transistor in the yz-plane.

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Starting with these formulas, we now may compute characteristic parameters of the transistor, e.g.
the base transport factor
1 W2
αT ≈ ≈1−
cosh (W/Lp ) 2L2p
where we have assumed exp (qVEB /kB T )  1  exp (qVKB /kB T ) (which means nothing else than
qVEB and qVKB shall be large compared to kB T , and VKB shall be negative). We see that a thin
base is necessary for a large αT .
With the same assumptions we obtain for the emitter efficiency
−1
Dn n0E Lp

W
γ ≈ 1+ tanh .
Dp p0B Ln Lp

In circuit applications the common emitter configuration is most often used, where the emitter
contact is grounded and the base and collector potentials are related to the emitter. With such a
topology one can achieve a gain > 1.
With (1) we can write the collector current in the common emitter configuration as

IK = α0 (IB + IK ) + IK,n . (5)

The common emitter current gain is defined as follows:

∆IK
β0 ≡ .
∆IB
If we resolve (2) for IK , divide by IB and set αT ≈ 1 (which is well fulfilled for todays transistors),
the gain will only depend on the emitter efficiency.

Dp p0B Ln p0B Ln
   
α0 γ W NE Ln
β0 = = = 0 coth ∼ 0 ∼
1 − α0 1−γ Dn nE Lp Lp nE W NB W

The current gain increases with rising ratio between emitter and base doping.

After this rather accumulated theory you just need to copy the necessary input files into
your home directory,
>> mkdir biptrans
>> cp ~hlbe/biptrans/* biptrans/
>> cd biptrans

Let’s start with the practical part.

2 Task 1: Gummel Plot

We want to simulate the stationary IV-curve. First, the emitter-collector voltage is ramped from 0
to 2.5 V, i.e. the transistor is driven into its working point. Then the base voltage is ramped from
0 to 1 V. Have a look at the Solve Section in the input file biptrans_des.cmd.

Start the Sentaurus Structure Editor with the following command:

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 sde biptrans_mdr

The name of the device to be edited is handed to sde as an parameter. The program will
automatically load the boundary file biptrans_mdr.bnd and the command file biptrans_mdr.cmd.
To build the mesh you have to click ‘mesh’→ ‘build mesh’ in the drop down menu bar. A
new dialog box will open and ask for a file name where to save the grid data. Enter bip as
file name and choose Mesh as meshing engine, leave everything else as it is and confirm by
pressing Build Mesh. The program will take care of file extensions. Now you can see the
structure of the device. At the bottom there is the collector with the collector contact, top
right you find the heavily-doped emitter and in-between the base which is contacted top left.
The critical region of a bipolar transistor is the base, therefore the base region must be refined
more than the other regions to obtain correct electron and hole currents. You can check that
this was already accounted for in the command file. Leave sde and do not save changes to the model.

Now we can start the simulation with

sdevice biptrans_des.cmd

.
When the simulation is finished, you should plot the collector current and the base current as a
function of the base voltage. For that, start the inspection tool inspect with

sentaurus inspect gummel_bip_des.plt &

These two IV-curves are called Gummel plot. Now we want to plot the current gain. Select New
... in inspect under Curves and try to plot the ratio IK /IB . Select the ’Y right axis’ as y-axis
for the gain with linear scale.
Answer the following questions:
(i) What is the value of the maximum of the gain?
(ii) At which base voltage has the gain its maximum?
(iii) Compare the maximum gain with the ratio of the doping concentrations between emitter and
base. Which value is larger and why?
(iv) Do not close inspect, since you can just update this plot (by pressing ) after the next
simulations.

3 Task 2: Device Optimization by Simulation

As we have seen in the Introduction, the common emitter current gain depends on the ratio of
NE
doping concentrations between emitter and base β0 ∼ N B
(see the last formula in the Introduction).
On one hand one wants do increase the doping density in the base to minimize its resistance. On
the other hand the doping level in the base must not be too high, in order to avoid a degradation
of the current gain.
We let the emitter doping unchanged and will try to optimize the gain by changing the base
doping. Vary the base doping in the limits 2e17 cm−3 to 1e18 cm−3 .
Do the following:

1. Open the command-file ‘biptrans_mdr.cmd ’ with an editor (e.g. emacs or gedit).

2. You will find in this file on line 77 the following statements:

Function = Gauss(PeakPos = 0.1, PeakVal = 4e+17, StdDev = 0.06)

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3. The base doping is set with PeakVal = 4e+17.
4. Set the PeakVal to a value in the range from 2e17 to 1e18.
5. Save the changes and generate the new SDEVICE input files with

sde -e -l sde_batch.scm

6. Run the simulation with

sdevice biptrans_des.cmd

7. Plot the gain as in task 1.

Find the base doping in the range from 2e17 cm−3 to 1e18 cm−3 , where the gain becomes
maximum.
Answer the following questions: (i) What is the value of this base doping? (ii) How large is the
maximum current gain for this doping level? (iii) What happens when you further decrease the
base doping concentration and why? (iv) What happens when you increase the base doping beyond
1e18 cm−3 and why?