Standard BiCMOS Implementation of a Two-Peak Negative Differential Resistance Circuit with High and Adjustable Peak-to-Valley Current Ratio

The paper demonstrates a novel two-peak negative differential resistance (NDR) circuit combining Si-based metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect-transistor (MOS) and SiGe-based heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT). Compared to the resonant-tunneling diode, MOS-HBT-NDR has two major advantages in our circuit design. One is that the fabrication of this MOS-HBT-NDR-based application can be fully implemented by the standard BiCMOS process. Another is that the peak current can be effectively adjusted by the controlled voltage. The peak-to-valley current ratio is about 4136 and 9.4 at the first and second peak respectively. It is very useful for circuit designers to consider the NDR-based applications.