Abstract: A semiconductor device is disclosed, which includes a multiple negative differential resistance element having negative differential resistance characteristics at at least two places in the current-voltage characteristics, and which is suitable for constructing a neural network having a high density integration and a high reliability.

Abstract: A complementary semiconductor device is disclosed having a substrate and a four layer structure of pnpn provided on the substrate wherein the first three layers constitute a pnp-type bipolar transistor and the second to the fourth layer constitute an npn-type bipolar transistor. According to the present invention, the pnp- and npn-type transistor which are disposed on different portions of a principal surface of the substrate, respectively, can be produced concurrently by crystal growth and thus production steps are simple and yield is remarkably improved.

Abstract: Disclosed is a semiconductor device including a heterojunction bipolar transistor in which the front surface of a base layer and the surface of an emitter-base junction are covered with a high-resistivity layer of compound semiconductor containing at least one constituent element common to an emitter layer and the base layer.

Abstract: A method for fabricating a semiconductor device comprises the steps of forming the first semiconductor layer on a semiconductor substrate, forming a surface protection layer of antimony (Sb) or the material having Sb as its main component, executing the other steps necessary for the fabrication of the semiconductor device, removing the surface protection layer, and forming, on the first semiconductor layer thus exposed, the second semiconductor layer.

Abstract: A resonant tunneling device includes a superlattice layer which includes an interlaminated structure of three semiconductor layers each having a narrow energy bandgap and serving as a quantum well layer and four semiconductor layers each having a wide energy bandgap and serving as a barrier layer and in which three quantum levels are formed in the quantum well layers. A resonant tunneling phenomenon produced between the quantum levels provides peak current values which are substantially equal to each other, peak voltages which can be set independently from each other, and peak-to-valley (P/V) ratios which are high, thereby realizing a resonant tunneling device which has an excellent performance as a three state logic element for a logic circuit. By increasing the number of quantum well layers and the number of barrier layers, a logic element of four or more states can be realized for a logic circuit.

Abstract: Microfabrication and large scale integration of a device can be realized by using a planar heterojunction bipolar transistor formed by a process comprising successively growing semiconductor layers serving as a subcollector, a collector, a base, and an emitter, respectively, through epitaxial growth on a compound semiconductor substrate in such a manner that at least one of the emitter junction and collector junction is a heterojunction, wherein a collector drawing-out metal layer is formed by the selective CVD method.

Abstract: 2A heterojunction bipolar transistor is disclosed in which a region of a base layer which extends in the vicinity of the interface between the base layer and an emitter layer is doped with an impurity at a higher concentration than that in the inside of the base layer to thereby form a built-in field by which carriers injected from the emitter are caused to drift to the inside of the base layer. In the transistor having this structure, the current gain does not depend on the emitter area, and it is possible to obtain a large current gain with a small emitter area.

Abstract: In a semiconductor element using avalanche multiplication such as a light-receiving element or a microwave oscillating element, a semiconductor A and a semiconductor B which satisfy the following condition:X.sub.A <X.sub.B, X.sub.A +E.sub.gA <X.sub.B +E.sub.gBwhere X.sub.A is the electron affinity of the semiconductor A, E.sub.gA is the forbidden band width of the semiconductor A, X.sub.B is the electron affinity of the semiconductor B and E.sub.gB is the forbidden band width of the semiconductor B, are layered and an electric field is applied in parallelism to the layer, whereby an impact ionization coefficient rate is obtained by junction of the different kinds of semiconductors. At least one of the semiconductors A and B is composed of a mixed crystal comprising three or more elements, and the mole fraction of said one semiconductor is varied to thereby control the value of the impact ionization coefficient rate.