MULTIWAFER MOLECULAR-BEAM EPITAXY FOR HIGH-VOLUME PRODUCTION OF GAAS ALGAAS HETEROJUNCTION BIPOLAR-TRANSISTOR WAFERS/

Circuits incorporating GaAs/AlGaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) are being increasingly used in commercial applications with vol ume requirements that can only be met using multiwafer reactors. HBT w afers grown in single and multiwafer molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) reac tors are found to be very similar in terms of both material characteri stics and resultant device performance. Postgrowth defect levels are r educed by an order of magnitude with the multiwafer system compared to single wafer systems and are similar to those obtained on commerciall y purchased metal organic chemical vapor deposition wafers. Multiwafer MBE systems are thus shown to be a viable means for the high volume p roduction of HBT wafers. (C) 1998 American Vacuum Society.