Demonstration and characterization of bipolar monolithic integrated circuits in 4H-SiC

Abstract

A monolithic bipolar integrated circuit technology employing transistor-transistor logic (TTL) is demonstrated in 4H-SiC for the first time. Operating on a 15-V power supply, as required by the higher base-emitter voltage of SiC bipolar transistors, TTL inverters with a fan-out of ten exhibit high-level noise margin (NMH) of 1.5 V and low-level noise margin (NML) of 3.9 V at room temperature. The transient response of the fabricated SiC TTL gates is also characterized. The circuits operate satisfactorily from room temperature to above 300 °C, suggesting that SiC bipolar integrated circuits are promising candidates for high-temperature applications. © 2008 IEEE.