A study of the optimum operating temperature of a high-performance PSA-BiCMOS inverter

A polycrystalline silicon self-aligned bipolar complementary metal-oxide se miconductor (PSA-BiCMOS) inverter was fabricated using a conventional compl ementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process. The trade-off temperatur e of the transfer characteristics of the PSA-BiCMOS inverter was studied as a function of temperature. The transfer characteristics of the CMOS invert er improved, but the current gains of the bipolar transistor, degraded with decreasing temperature. The trade-off temperature of the PSA-BiCMOS invert er was about 220 K. In other words, the optimum operating temperature of th e PSA-BiCMOS inverter was about 220 K.