Abstract
In principle, the upper limit on transistor speed is determined, on one hand, by the inertia of the physical processes taking place in the region where charge carriers interact with the electric field in the semiconductor, and, on the other hand, by the time it takes to charge the transistor’s output capacitance (which includes the load capacitance). This time is shorter as the transistor’s gain or transconductance is higher and the magnitudes of the “ballast” resistances in the transistor are lower. In this chapter we will examine common bipolar transistors (Sec. 1.1) and field-effect transistors (Sec. 1.2) to reveal the physical processes that determine their speed when operating as switches or in the microwave small-signal amplifier mode. From this examination we determine the fundamental parameters of transistor operating speed. These parameters will be used throughout the book to describe the operating characteristics of superhigh-speed transistors. The parameters of logic gate operating speed are presented in Sec. 1.3.
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Požela, J. (1993). High-Speed Transistor Parameters. In: Physics of High-Speed Transistors. Microdevices. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1242-8_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1242-8_1
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