High-Responsivity Photodetector in Standard SiGe BiCMOS Technology

For high-speed optoelectronic applications such as fiber-optic data communication systems, photodetectors (PDs) with high responsivity in Si-related processes are required. In this letter, a result of the effort along this line is reported. A novel device named phototransistor PD (PTPD) was realized in a commercial 0.35-mum SiGe BiCMOS technology. The device combines a surface PD (SPD) and a conventional SiGe heterojunction PT (HPT). It was shown that the SPD enhanced light absorption and the PTPD showed significant performance improvement over HPT. Responsivities of 5.2 A/W for an 850-nm light and 9.5 A/W for a 670-nm light were achieved in the PTPD, with floating base and SPD terminals.