MIT Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MTL VLSI SEMINAR

Tuesday
November 1, 1994
3:30 Reception
4:00 Lecture
Room 34-101
50 Vassar Street

Silicon Bipolar Technology for Wireless Applications

Tad Yamaguchi
Maxim Integrated Products, Inc.
Beaverton, Oregon

Device performance of silicon bipolar technology has traditionally been driven by mainframe computers, high-speed workstations, and high-performance test and measurement instruments. For the past decade, system speed has been enhanced significantly with the use of high-speed ECL circuits designed on self-aligned poly-Si bipolar IC processes. Recently, however, application emphasis on bipolar ICs is shifting from mainframe computers and workstations, where high-speed digital ICs are required, to telecommunications applications, where high-speed precision analog and mixed signal ICs are required.

This presentation reviews the bipolar device performance requirements for telecommunications applications, particularly for RF applications in wireless communications. Following an introductory talk on bipolar device performance progress being made for the last decade, basic system and circuit requirements for wireless applications are discussed. Bipolar device performance requirements are defined based on the frequency range of wireless communications. Examples of analysis results on circuit performance dependence for different generations of bipolar processes are presented. Bipolar device characteristics, performance trade-offs, and optimizations are re-examined and presented as functions of primary process parameters with wireless applications in mind. Moreover, device geometry scaling effects on bipolar device operation are discussed. In addition, the presentation covers process integration issues on other devices that are often required to be integrated along with high-performance trade-offs and device geometry scaling effects, future technology requirements and directions on bipolar devices are addressed from the wireless application point of view.