Silicon-germanium chip sets new speed record

Wed, 02/19/2014 - 2:42pm
Rick Robinson, Georgia Institute of Technology

High-speed silicon-germanium chips and measurements probes can be seen inside a cryogenic probe station in a laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Image: Georgia Tech/Rob FeltA research collaboration consisting of IHP-Innovations for High Performance Microelectronics in Germany and the Georgia Institute of Technology has demonstrated the world's fastest silicon-based device to date. The investigators operated a silicon-germanium (SiGe) transistor at 798 GHz fMAX, exceeding the previous speed record for silicon-germanium chips by about 200 GHz.

Although these operating speeds were achieved at extremely cold temperatures, the research suggests that record speeds at room temperature aren't far off, said Prof. John D. Cressler, who led the research for Georgia Tech. Information about the research was published in IEEE Electron Device Letters.

"The transistor we tested was a conservative design, and the results indicate that there is significant potential to achieve similar speeds at room temperature—which would enable potentially world changing progress in high data rate wireless and wired communications, as well as signal processing, imaging, sensing and radar applications," said Cressler. "Moreover, I believe that these results also indicate that the goal of breaking the so called ‘terahertz barrier’—meaning, achieving terahertz speeds in a robust and manufacturable silicon-germanium transistor—is within reach."




Silicon, a material used in the manufacture of most modern microchips, is not competitive with other materials when it comes to the extremely high performance levels needed for certain types of emerging wireless and wired communications, signal processing, radar and other applications. Certain highly specialized and costly materials—such as indium phosphide, gallium arsenide and gallium nitride—presently dominate these highly demanding application areas.


The result is cutting-edge silicon germanium devices such as the IHP Microelectronics 800 GHz transistor. Such designs combine SiGe's extremely high performance with silicon's traditional advantages—low cost, high yield, smaller size and high levels of integration and manufacturability—making silicon with added germanium highly competitive with the other materials.

Cressler and his team demonstrated the 800-GHz transistor speed at 4.3 K (-452 F). This transistor has a breakdown voltage of 1.7 V, a value which is adequate for most intended applications.

The 800-GHz transistor was manufactured using IHP’s 130-nm BiCMOS process, which has a cost advantage compared with today’s highly-scaled CMOS technologies. This 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS process is offered by IHP in a multi-project wafer foundry service.

The Georgia Tech team used liquid helium to achieve the extremely low cryogenic temperatures of 4.3 K in achieving the observed 798-GHz speeds. "When we tested the IHP 800-GHz transistor at room temperature during our evaluation, it operated at 417 GHz," Cressler said. "At that speed, it's already faster than 98% of all the transistors available right now." 

Source: Georgia Institute of Technology


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