Hot carrier effect on the bipolar transistors’ response to electromagnetic interference

• BJT’s response to EMI systematically studied.
• Hot carrier effect on BJT’s EMI response is firstly investigated.
• Theory able to predict the variation trend of EMI response after device damage.

Damage of bipolar transistors (BJTs) during the mission could affect their response to electromagnetic interference (EMI) and change the Integrated Circuit (IC)’s electromagnetic susceptibility (EMS). This work investigated the effect of hot carrier stress on BJT’s response to EMI. The experimental results demonstrate that the base current increases under EMI and the amplitude enlarges after hot carrier stress. The variation of EMI induced collector current shift after hot carrier stress depends on the base supply resistance Rt. When Rt = 0, IC shift in presence of EMI is not affected by hot carrier stress whereas in the case of Rt ≠ 0, the EMI induced IC increment reduces or even reverses in variation direction. When the base terminal is biased by a current source, the voltage across the emitter-base junction drops more significantly after hot carrier stress.