Lateral p-n-p Transistors and Complementary SiC Bipolar Technology

Lateral p-n-p transistors and a complementary bipolar technology have been demonstrated for analog integrated circuits. Besides vertical n-p-n's, this technology provides lateral p-n-p's at the cost of one additional lithographic and dry etching step. Both devices share the same epitaxial layers and feature topside contacts to all terminals. The influence on p-n-p current gain of contact topology (circular versus rectangular), effective base width, base/emitter doping ratio, and temperature was studied in detail. In the range -40 degrees C to 300 degrees C, the current gain of the p-n-p transistor shows a maximum of similar to 37 around 0 degrees C and decreases to similar to 8 at 300 degrees C, whereas in the same range, the gain of n-p-n transistors exhibits a negative temperature coefficient.