We describe 150-nm-thick collector InP-based double heterojunction bipolar transistors with two types of thin pseudomorphic bases. The emitter and collector layers are designed for high collector current operation. The collector current blocking is suppressed by the compositionally step-graded collector structure even at JC of over 500 kA/cm2 with practical breakdown characteristics. An HBT with a 20-nm-thick base achieves a high fT of 351 GHz at high JC of 667 kA/cm2, and a 30-nm-base HBT achieves a high value of 329 GHz for both fT and fmax at JC of 583 kA/cm2. An equivalent circuit analysis suggests that the extremely small carrier-transit-delay contributes to the ultrahigh fT.

This paper investigates the effects of n-type doping in the emitter-base heterojunction vicinity on the DC and high-frequency characteristics of InP/InGaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs). The n-type doping is shown to be very effective for enhancing the tunneling-injection current from the emitter and thus for reducing the collector-current turn-on voltage. However, it is also revealed that an unnecessary increase in the doping level only degrades the current gain, especially in the low-current region. A higher doping level also increases the emitter junction capacitance. The optimized HBT structures with a 0.5-µm-wide emitter exhibit turn-on voltage as low as 0.78 V and current gain of around 80 at JC = 1 mA/µm2. They also provide a current-gain cutoff frequency, ft, of 280 GHz and a maximum oscillation frequency, fmax, of 385 GHz at VCE = 1 V and JC = 3 mA/µm2. These results indicate that the proposed HBTs are very useful for high-speed and low-power IC applications.

In high-frequency operation, it is difficult to obtain a large tuning range in load-pull measurement due to losses in the tuning network and RF-probes. In this paper, a low-loss on-wafer-tuning load-pull method is proposed. The output matching network consists of two CPWs connected to a FET output terminal. The impedance of the network can be controlled by changing the effective length of the CPWs by replacing RF-probes and removing air-bridges. To confirm the validity of this load-pull method, a K-band high-efficiency MMIC power amplifier has been designed using the method and fabricated. The amplifier demonstrates performance of 19. 5-dBm saturated output power, 12. 5-dB linear gain and 49. 3% maximum power-added efficiency (PAE) at Vds = 3 V for 26 GHz operation. At 1-dB gain-compression, the PAE is still as high as 44%. This high PAE result clearly indicates that the proposed method is a useful tool for designing power amplifiers, especially those for use in high-frequency (e.g. K-band) operation.

This paper discusses direct optical injection locking of a millimeter-wave oscillator using an InP/InGaAs heterojunction phototransistor (HPT) and its applications. Previously reported optically injection-locked oscillators (OILOs) are reviewed first. In particular, the features of a direct OILO (DOILO), where synchronization can be achieved by illuminating the active oscillator device itself, are discussed in comparison with the indirect OILO. DOILOs with excellent characteristics require high-performance transistors having both a high maximum oscillation frequency and fast photoresponse. We have developed high-performance opto-microwave-compatible InP/InGaAs HPTs whose layer and fabrication process are fully compatible with ultrahigh-speed heterojunction bipolar transistors. The paper discusses the photocoupling structure, and it is shown that the back-illuminated structure with the aid of InP subcollector enables one to achieve a 100-GHz-class DOILO. The configuration and performance of the 100-GHz-class DOILO are then presented; in particular, injection locking from optical signals with a modulation or beat frequency of around the fundamental (96 GHz) or second harmonic (192 GHz) is successfully demonstrated. To our knowledge, 96 GHz is the highest optically injection-locked frequency and 192 GHz is the highest inputmodulation frequency reported for OILOs. The HPT oscillator IC promises compact, low-power-consumption remote local oscillators for 100-GHz-class wireless systems and 100-Gbit/s-class optoelectronic clock recovery circuits. In addition, when the HPT oscillator is used as a modulator, we can attain cost-effective millimeter-wave systems compatible with conventional optical fiber networks transmitting digitally modulated baseband signals.

This paper investigates current-gain and high-frequency characteristics of double heterojunction bipolar transistors (DHBTs) with a uniform GaAsSb, compositionally graded GaAsSb, uniform InGaAsSb, or compositionally graded InGaAsSb base. DHBTs with a compositionally graded InGaAsSb base exhibit a high current gain of ∼75 and fT=504GHz. In order to boost fmax of DHBTs with a compositionally graded InGaAsSb base, a highly doped GaAsSb base contact layer is inserted. The fabricated DHBTs exhibit fT/fmax=513/637GHz and a breakdown voltage of 5.2V.

A design scheme for a high-speed differential-input limiting transimpedance amplifier (TIA) was developed. The output-stage amplifier of the TIA is investigated in detail in order to suppress undershoot and ringing in the output waveform. The amplifier also includes a peak detector for the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) output, which is used to control the optical demodulator for differential-phase-shift-keying or differential-quadrature-phase-shift-keying formats. The limiting TIA was fabricated on the basis of 1-µm emitter-width InP-based heterojunction-bipolar-transistor (HBT) IC technology. Its differential gain is 39 dB, its 3-dB bandwidth is 27 GHz, and its estimated differential transimpedance gain is 73 dBΩ. The obtained output waveform shows that the developed design scheme is effective for suppressing undershoot and ringing.

A 3-bit flash analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for electronic dispersion compensation (EDC) was developed using InP HBTs. Nyquist operation was confirmed up to 24 Gsps, which enables oversampling acquisition for 10 Gbit/s non-return-to-zero (NRZ) signals. The ADC can also be operated at up to 37 Gsps for low input frequencies. To reduce aperture jitter and achieve a wide band of over 7 GHz, an analog input signal for all pre-amplifiers and a clock signal for all latched comparators are provided as traveling waves through coplanar transmission lines. EDC was demonstrated by capturing a 10-Gbit/s pseudo-random bit stream (PRBS) with the waveform degraded by polarization-mode dispersion (PMD). By using the captured data, we confirmed that a calculation of a transversal filter mitigates PMD.