RELIABILITY OF INP-BASED HBT IC TECHNOLOGY FOR HIGH-SPEED, LOW-POWER APPLICATIONS

We report on the reliability of an InP-based AIInAs/GaInAs heterojunct ion bipolar transistor technology which has applications in very high- speed and low power integrated circuits, We have performed extensive a ccelerated lifetest experiments under different de bias conditions and different ambient temperatures. For high-performance devices we predi ct meantime-to failures in excess of 10(7) hours at 125 degrees C junc tion temperatures. We have also investigated the effects of hydrogen o n HBT device characteristics which Is particularly important for integ rated circuits in hermetically sealed packages, We show that the trans istor performance is not sensitive to a 4% hydrogen ambient, For integ rated circuits requiring precision thin-film resistors we performed li fetest experiments on tantalum-nitride resistors used in our IC proces s, We show that these thin-film resistors are very stable and exhibit mean-time-to-failures exceeding that of discrete transistors.