The temperature dependence of mixed mode degradation in bipolar transistors

The temperature dependence of mixed mode degradation is investigated. It is shown that a standard measure-stress-measure procedure can yield large errors in the extracted activation energy of this degradation mechanism. A new and efficient measurement procedure is presented that allows for an accurate extraction of the temperature dependence. This methodology was applied to our samples and it was found that the mixed mode degradation mechanism exhibits a small negative activation energy.