Research On The Damage Mechanism Of The Bipolar Transistor Induced By The Electromagnetic Pulse

Since the mostly semiconductor devices are micro-power, micro-structure devices, their reliability tend to decline or even fail completely under the external electrical stresses. The electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is one of the main reasons inducing the external electrical-over-stress, which has a great destructive effect on the device. With the increase of the integration level and the reduction of the geometric size, the semiconductor devices are increasingly susceptible to destroy from the effect of EMP. Thus it is essential to study the EMP failure mechanism of the semiconductor devices from the theoretical aspect.By use of the device simulator soft Medici, this paper analyzes the damage effect and mechanism of the silicon bipolar transistor induced by the intense electromagnetic pulse. Research shows that the damage position of the bipolar transistor is different with the different intensity of the electromagnetic pulse: when the magnitude of the injecting voltage is low, the damage will appear firstly near the n-n+ interface under the center of the emitter region; when the magnitude of the injecting voltage is sufficiently high, the damage will appear firstly at the edge of the base near the emitter region. At the same time, this paper also analyzes the relationship among the damage energy, the damage power, the burnout time and the injecting voltage with the curve fitting soft employed. It is obtained that the damage energy of the bipolar transistor is not a constant value under the intense electromagnetic pulse.The research in this paper provides a certain theoretical basis to the damage assessment and hardening of the semiconductor devices induced by the electromagnetic pulse, and also lays a good foundation to the experimental study of EMP effect in the future work.