Solid-state high power device and method
A high-power solid-state transistor structure comprised of a plurality of emitter or gate fingers in a uniform or non-uniform manner to provide improved high power performance is disclosed. Preferably, each of the fingers is associated with a corresponding one of a plurality of sub-cells, the sub-cells being arranged in at least one row. The advantage of the invention is that the structure can be practically implemented and the absolute thermal stability can be maintained for very high power transistors with reduced adverse effects resulting from random variation in the manufacturing and design process.
This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/718,757 that was filed Nov. 21, 2003, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference. This application claims the benefit of provisional application No. 60/607,767 that was filed Sep. 7, 2004, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference. This application claims the benefit of provisional application No. 60/607,762 that was filed Sep. 7, 2004, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference.
REFERENCE TO GOVERNMENT RIGHTSThis invention was made with United States government support awarded by the following agencies: National Science Foundation. Electrical & Communications System Div., Award No. 0323717. The United States government has certain rights in this invention.
FIELD OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention relates generally to high power solid-state devices, and more particularly to high power solid-state device structures that are capable of providing high power performance and a corresponding method of design of such structures.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONHigh power solid-state devices able to amplify radio frequency (“RF”) and microwave signals are used today in a variety of applications, for example in cell phones and other wireless communication systems. Bipolar junction transistors, including heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs), are commonly used in such systems for amplifying small-amplitude signals and delivering amplified RF power to an antenna. Although bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) are used herein to describe the background of this invention, this is by way of example and does not limit the scope of the invention disclosed herein.
High power solid-state devices for amplifying RF and microwave signals can be fabricated using a variety of materials, but silicon germanium (“SiGe”) and gallium arsenide (“GaAs”) are the most widely used materials for commercial applications at the present time. Most power amplifiers for cell phones are made using GaAs, because current fabrication technologies using that material can deliver devices with relatively high power output (1-4 W) at the relatively low frequencies (800 Mhz-1.9 Ghz) used by most cell phones. Most power amplifiers for wireless networking products use SiGe, because current fabrication technologies using that material can allow high level integration to reduce cost deliver devices that can operate at somewhat higher frequencies (2.4 Ghz-60 Ghz) but at the reduced power (10-200 mW typical) used by wireless networking products such as 802.11b (“WiFi”). Besides the electronic properties which differ between GaAs and SiGe devices, the two different materials also have different thermal conductivities which require somewhat different techniques for heat management.
The effective range of a wireless communication system depends on the maximum RF power that can be produced by that wireless communication system. The maximum RF power that can be produced by a device depends on the active device area, with the power capacity increasing as the active device area increases.
The bandwidth, or information transmission capacity, of a wireless communication system depends on the maximum frequency range that can be amplified effectively by that wireless communication system. As the power capacity and associated active device area of a device increases, the adverse effects of heat and increased parasitics also increase, so in practice it is generally the case that increasing the power capacity of a given device will decrease the maximum frequency range that can be amplified effectively by that device.
Especially for wireless communication systems, such as cell phones, that use batteries for electrical power, the so called power added efficiency (“PAE”) at which input battery power is converted to usable RF power (instead of being wasted, for example, as heat) determines how long such a device can be used before it must be recharged. For the reasons discussed above, device designs that maximize power added efficiency and RF power output while maintaining adequate high frequency performance are needed.
As discussed above, the power capacity of an active device increases as the active device area increases. For example, the maximum RF power level that can be produced by a BJT depends on the emitter area of the BJT, with the maximum RF power level increasing as the emitter area increases. Because of problems such as the emitter current crowding effect, it is known to divide the total emitter area of a BJT into multiple emitter “fingers” separated from one another. It is also known that the specific arrangement of these multiple emitter fingers can affect many aspects of the performance of such a device.
Although the device 20 of
When the transistors in the devices of
It is also known that the non-uniform temperature distribution common to these types of devices can make them unstable at high output levels. The higher temperature of the center fingers can cause the so-called “current hogging” effect, wherein the higher temperature center fingers draw more current than the peripheral fingers subject to the same bias voltage. Current hogging occurs when the increased temperature of the center fingers causes an increase in current through those center fingers. The increased current through the center figures increases the heat produced in those center fingers, which in turn exacerbates the temperature difference between the hotter center fingers and the cooler peripheral fingers. Even if this effect does not cause the device to go completely unstable, it can nonetheless severely degrade device performance, for example by decreasing high frequency gain. In the worst case, thermal runaway and catastrophic failure occurs.
One prior art approach to improve the thermal stability and maintain a uniform junction temperature across the multiple emitter fingers 26, or multiple subcells 32, of a power transistor, is to connect equally- or unequally-valued ballast resistors 38 in series with each emitter finger 26 as shown in the device 36 of
Although ballast resistors 38 can provide thermal stability and improve temperature uniformity across the multiple emitter fingers 26, or emitter finger subcells 32, the use of ballast resistors 38 can adversely affect important measures of device performance. First, using ballast resistors will tend to reduce the maximum RF power output from the device. This is because the emitter fingers and subcells in series with the ballast resistors will be underbiased compared to a device without ballast resistors, since the available bias voltage must be shared between the ballast resistors and the remainder of the device. In addition, the ballasting resistors increase the RC delay and thereby adversely affect the high frequency performance of the device. Finally, the voltage drop across the ballast resistors ends up as heat instead of as RF output power, thereby wasting power and reducing the efficiency (“PAE”) of converting DC supply power into RF signal power for the power transistors.
Another prior art approach to improve the thermal stability and maintain a uniform junction across the multiple emitter fingers of a power transistor is to make the spacing between the emitter fingers non-uniform. This approach is discussed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,534,857. In this type of layout, the emitter finger spacing is non-uniform, with more spacing between the emitter fingers in the center region and less spacing between the edge fingers. The spacing is arranged with the goal of providing a uniform junction temperature across the emitter fingers. Similar benefits can be obtained by using progressively narrower widths of emitter fingers from the periphery toward the center region of the power transistor, or by using progressively shorter emitter finger lengths from the periphery toward the center region of the power transistor, for example as shown in U.S. Pat Nos. 5,616,950 and 5,850,099.
The aforementioned techniques involving non-uniform dimensioning and placement of the emitter fingers theoretically might produce thermal stability and uniform junction temperature regardless of the total number of emitter fingers in such a device. However, there are important practical limitations to this technique, especially for very large power transistors.
First, although it may be possible to calculate to a high degree of precision the dimensions and positions for emitter fingers that will optimize thermal stability and uniformity, it is much more difficult to actually manufacture emitter fingers in accordance with those calculated optimal dimensions and locations. The lithographic processes used to manufacture the emitter fingers always have statistical variations that cause the widths and locations of the emitter fingers to vary. This variation can be caused, for example, by variations in the optical column or mask used to print the emitter fingers, by variations in the photoresist or developer used to image the emitter fingers, or by variations in the etch or deposition processes used to prepare the emitter fingers. This variation can manifest itself, for example, in finger-to-finger variation within a transistor, in transistor-to-transistor variation within a batch, or in day-to-day variation between batches.
Second, although it may be possible to calculate to a high degree of precision the dimensions and positions for emitter fingers that will optimize thermal stability and uniformity, practical chip layout tools do not provide for arbitrarily small increments of dimensions and positions in design rules. Thus, especially when the dimensions and spacings of the emitter fingers are of the same order of magnitude as the minimum feature size available in the process being used to manufacture the transistors and/or the minimum dimension and location increments of the design rules of the software used to layout the transistor, there are important practical limits to realizing absolute uniformity of temperature and temperature stability using the prior art techniques involving non-uniform dimensioning and spacing of the emitter fingers.
Moreover, when the number of emitter fingers arranged in a single row becomes very large, the spacing non-uniformity of the emitter fingers residing in the center region of a power transistor becomes very gradual. As shown in
In comparison to the 10-finger power transistor where emitter fingers No. 4-7 are the center fingers, emitter fingers (No. 4-No. 16) in the 20-finger power transistor are all center fingers. The available space in the center area must be shared among all the center fingers, thus the central area of a 20 finger device becomes crowded because the edge area in a 20-finger device remains the same as in the 10-finger device. The difference in the theoretically optimum spacing between, for example, emitter fingers 4 and 5 and the spacing between emitter fingers 5 and 6 in a 20-finger device can be very small. The above-described practical limitations in manufacturing and design introduce variation in the dimensions and locations of emitter fingers that can result in significant temperature non-uniformity once the device's operation reaches its steady state.
Exacerbating the problem is the fact that the larger is the total number of emitter fingers in a power transistor, the higher is the junction temperature (
As a result, the dimensions and locations of the emitter fingers can be quite critical, and even small variations in dimensions can create large variations in temperature uniformity.
FIGS. 7(b) and 7(c) present calculated steady-state temperature and current distributions of the device of
Generally, as the number of emitter fingers increases, smaller finger width variations will produce current hogging and temperature non-uniformity. Similarly, higher operating temperatures and higher output power tend to increase these adverse effects on temperature uniformity caused by process variation.
In summary, practical limitations in the manufacturing and design of power transistors having a very large number of emitter fingers limit the utility of non-uniform dimensioning and location of emitter fingers in achieving temperature uniformity and thermal stability in such devices. As a result, these prior art techniques are mainly useful for low and medium power transistors where not many emitter fingers are required. What is needed is a power transistor structure suitable for high power transistors using large numbers of emitter fingers and having better power performance, improved manufacturability, and more reliable thermal stability compared to prior-art power transistor structures. What is further needed are structures and dimensions which are particularly suited for SiGe applications, and other structures and dimensions which are particularly suited for GaAs applications.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONA preferred embodiment of a high power transistor according to the invention includes a plurality of emitter fingers fabricated on a common semiconductor chip and wherein the emitter electrodes of bipolar junction transistors (or heterojunction bipolar transistors) are in the form of parallel elongated finger elements having a uniform or non-uniform spacing. These fingers are arranged in a 1-dimensional (1-D) or 2-dimensional (2-D) form such that the potential thermal instability at high power operation may be reduced ballasting resistors with substantially reduced values, in the range of less than 10 ohms, which provides power, efficiency, and high frequency performance benefits in comparison to prior-art ballast resistor approaches which used larger resistor values typically in the range of 100 ohms.
These fingers can also be arranged in a 1-dimensional (1-D) or 2-dimensional (2-D) form such that the potential thermal instability at high power operation is completely eliminated by forming a “hollow-center” layout where one or more elongated emitter fingers or subcells are left out during design or disconnected during manufacture, with or without the use of small ballasting resistors.
In a particularly preferred embodiment, a high power transistor according to the invention includes a base that comprises a GaAs layer less than about 100 microns thick, and emitter fingers that are less than about 1 micron wide.
Further objects, features, and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the following drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGSIn the drawings:
FIGS. 8(a)-8(f) show an exemplary fabrication process for fabricating a SiGe (a similar process can be used for GaAs) bipolar junction power transistor having two emitter fingers;
As previously discussed, high power transistors commonly employ multiple finger structures to increase the total power output. For bipolar junction transistors and heterojunction bipolar transistors, these multiple fingers are emitter fingers. Although the following embodiments of this invention are described using bipolar junction transistors as examples, the bipolar junction transistors are used by way of example, and not as a limitation on the scope of the invention.
By way of example, and not as a limitation, FIGS. 8(a)-8(f) show an exemplary prior art fabrication process for fabricating a SiGe bipolar junction power transistor having two emitter fingers. The prior art process of FIGS. 8(a)-8(f), sometimes called the double-mesa process, can be used for fabricating X-band SiGe HBT devices. This prior art process is highly repeatable and reliable, and typically employs 7 mask levels and 20 steps. This prior art process is used herein as an example of a process for implementing SiGe or GaAs power transistors using the specific dimensions and device layouts of the present invention, but it is by no means the only such process that could be used.
The exemplary process of FIGS. 8(a)-8(f) begins with a material stack formed on an Si substrate 62, followed by a heavily N-type doped Si subcollector layer 60, a lightly n-type doped Si collector layer 58, a p-type doped SiGe base layer 56, and an n-type doped Si emitter layer 53. Emitter metal contacts 52 are formed using standard photolithography and liftoff techniques. The emitter metal 52, for example Cr or Au, is first evaporated on top of the highly doped emitter cap layer 53 of the Si/SiGe/Si heterostructure. The multi-emitter metal fingers 52, typically 2 microns wide, are formed with the first-level mask, leaving the structure shown in
The patterned emitter metal fingers 52 then serve as self-aligned mask for subsequent dry/wet etching of the Si emitter layer 53 to expose the boron-doped SiGe base layer 56, leaving the structure shown in
The third mask is used to form the base mesa by RIE and to expose the highly doped subcollector layer 60 for collector contact formation, leaving the structure shown in
A conformal PECVD SiO2 deposition is used to form a passivation layer 66 over the active device 50 and the exposed substrate 62. Contact via holes 68 are opened in the passivation layer 66 by RIE (6th mask) and interconnect pad metal 67 is deposited and then patterned with photolithography (7th mask) to finish the fabrication process and form the completed device 50 shown in
Referring to the drawings,
The arrangement of the multiple emitter fingers 26 must adhere to the applicable design rules of the technology used to build the device. Since any design rule will have some minimum allowable increment of distance, even if the perfect placement and spacing of the multiple emitter fingers can be calculated, this perfect placement and spacing cannot be implemented in practice, so at least some non-uniformity of junction temperature should be expected.
In the device 70 of
In an appropriate fabrication process, such a small valued ballast resistor can be formed simply by shrinking the size of a contact hole 68 to the emitter 24, for example to the emitter metal 52, to create the desired resistance in series with the emitter finger 26, with no additional structure or processing step required. The values of the resistors in accordance to the preferred embodiment are calculated based on the known maximum statistical variation of the finger width with the goal of a thermally stable operation condition. The calculation may involve iterations using measured or calculated thermal-electric coefficients and heating power density.
Although the small ballast resistors 71 are connected to emitter fingers in the device 70 of
In comparison to the prior-art approach which uses ballast resistors 38 having values in the range of 100 ohms, the small ballast resistors 71 in the device 70 of
Although the device of
In addition, although arc-shaped rows are used for the illustration of the 2-D thermal balance structure in the device of
Using the “hollow center” 84 in the device 82 of
The potential thermal instability that may be triggered by the deviation from the required emitter finger spacing and/or by statistical variation of finger width is ameliorated using the hollow center 84. The hollow center 84 can be implemented by placing a gap at the center of the device 82 when designing the device, or the hollow center 84 can be implemented by electrically disconnecting or removing one or more of the center emitter fingers 26 after the device 82 has been partially fabricated.
The “hollow center” 84 can be applied to layouts of multiple rows and can also be applied to a single row at locations instead of or in addition to center locations when the number of emitter fingers is sufficiently large. Although a non-uniform arrangement of emitter fingers is preferred, it is not required for this embodiment, and the “hollow center” 84 can be used even when all the other emitter fingers are uniformly spaced. Accordingly, both uniform and non-uniform arrangements of emitter fingers using the “hollow center” 84 can be used in a device according to the invention. The device 82 of
Like the device 74 of
The hollow center 88 can be formed by electrically disconnecting or removing selected subcells during manufacture or the hollow center 88 subcells can be simply left out during layout of the device. The device 86 of
Although the device 90 of
Unlike the uniformly-spaced single row of subcells used in the device 96 of
There are various possibilities with regard to alternative embodiments of a solid state high power device and method according to the invention.
In any device according to the various embodiments disclosed herein, the thermal stability of each individual emitter finger or subcell is preferably maintained, to ensure thermal stability of a composite structure that comprises all the emitter fingers or subcells together. To ensure the stability of the individual emitter fingers of a GaAs device, each finger should be less than 2 microns wide, preferably around one micron wide.
To ensure the stability of the individual emitter fingers of a GaAs device, the substrate thickness should also be thinned to a certain thickness depending on the overall heat dissipation of the device and finger width, so that the substrate thickness should be less than 130 microns, and preferably around 100 microns. A GaAs device having an emitter finger width less than 2 microns and a substrate thickness less than 130 microns is particularly preferred.
It is understood that the invention is not confined to the embodiments set forth herein as illustrative, but embraces all such forms thereof as come within the scope of the following claims.
Claims
1. A high power transistor comprising:
- a base, an emitter, a collector, and a plurality of elongated emitter fingers extending from and electrically connected to the emitter;
- wherein the elongated emitter fingers are arranged side by side in a row, the row extending between a first row end and a second row end and having a row center located at the midpoint between the first row end and the second row end;
- wherein the plurality of elongated emitter fingers includes a first pair of emitter fingers separated by a first side-to-side distance, and a second pair of emitter fingers separated by a second side-to-side distance, wherein the midpoint between the first pair of emitter fingers is positioned closer to the row center than the midpoint between the second pair of emitter fingers, and wherein the first side-to-side distance is greater than the second side-to-side distance; and
- further comprising at least one small ballast resistor having a value of less than about 10 ohms and electrically connected in series with at least one elongated emitter finger in the plurality of emitter fingers.
2. The device of claim 1, wherein the value of the at least one small ballast resistor is less than about 5 ohms.
3. The device of claim 1, wherein the first side-to-side distance is at least twice as big as the second side-to-side distance.
4. The device of claim 1, wherein the at least one small ballast resistor is formed using a contact hole through a passivation layer to an emitter metal layer, wherein the contact hole has dimensions less than about 1 micron by 1 micron.
5. The device of claim 1, wherein the base includes a layer of GaAs, and wherein the width of at least one elongated emitter finger is less than about 1.2 microns.
6. The device of claim 1, wherein the base includes a layer of GaAs, and wherein the width of at least one elongated emitter finger is about 0.8 microns.
7. The device of claim 1, wherein the base includes a layer of GaAs, and wherein the thickness of the layer of GaAs is less than about 100 microns.
8. The device of claim 1, wherein the base includes a layer of GaAs, and wherein the thickness of the layer of GaAs is about 80 microns.
9. The device of claim 1, wherein the base includes a layer of GaAs, wherein the majority of the elongated emitter fingers have widths that are less than about 1.2 microns.
10. The device of claim 9, wherein the thickness of the layer of GaAs is less than about 100 microns.
11. A high power transistor comprising:
- a base, an emitter, a collector, and a plurality of emitter finger subcells, each emitter finger subcell comprising one or more elongated emitter fingers extending from and electrically connected to the emitter;
- wherein the emitter finger subcells are arranged side by side in a row, the row extending between a first row end and a second row end and having a row center located at the midpoint between the first row end and the second row end;
- wherein the plurality of emitter finger subcells includes a first pair of emitter finger subcells separated by a first side-to-side distance, and a second pair of emitter finger subcells separated by a second side-to-side distance, wherein the midpoint between the first pair of emitter finger subcells is positioned closer to the row center than the midpoint between the second pair of emitter finger subcells, and wherein the first side-to-side distance is greater than the second side-to-side distance; and
- further comprising at least one small ballast resistor having a value of less than about 10 ohms and electrically connected in series with at least one elongated emitter finger in the plurality of emitter finger subcells.
12. The device of claim 11, wherein each emitter finger subcell includes at least two elongated emitter fingers.
13. The device of claim 11, wherein the first side-to-side distance is at least twice as big as the second side-to-side distance.
14. The device of claim 11, wherein the at least one small ballast resistor is formed using a contact hole through a passivation layer to an emitter metal layer, wherein the contact hole has dimensions less than about 1 micron by 1 micron.
15. The device of claim 11, wherein the base includes a layer of GaAs, and wherein the width of at least one elongated emitter finger is less than about 1.2 microns.
16. The device of claim 11, wherein the base includes a layer of GaAs, and wherein the width of at least one elongated emitter finger is about 0.8 microns.
17. The device of claim 11, wherein the base includes a layer of GaAs, and wherein the thickness of the layer of GaAs is less than about 100 microns.
18. The device of claim 11, wherein the plurality of emitter finger subcells includes a first subcell and a second subcell, wherein the first subcell is positioned closer to the row center than the second subcell, and wherein the number of elongated emitter fingers in the first subcell is less than the number of elongated emitter fingers in the second subcell.
19. The device of claim 18, wherein the number of elongated emitter fingers in the first subcell is one.
20. The device of claim 11, wherein the wherein the plurality of emitter finger subcells includes a first subcell and a second subcell, wherein the first subcell is positioned closer to the row center than the second subcell, and wherein the area of the elongated emitter fingers in the first subcell is less than the area of the elongated emitter fingers in the second subcell.
21. A high power transistor comprising:
- a base, an emitter, a collector, and a plurality of elongated emitter fingers extending from and electrically connected to the emitter;
- wherein the elongated emitter fingers are arranged side by side in a plurality of rows, each row extending between a first row end and a second row end and having a row center located at the midpoint between the first row end and the second row end;
- wherein the plurality of elongated emitter fingers in at least one row in the plurality of rows includes a first pair of emitter fingers separated by a first side-to-side distance, and a second pair of emitter fingers separated by a second side-to-side distance, wherein the midpoint between the first pair of emitter fingers is positioned closer to the row center than the midpoint between the second pair of emitter fingers, and wherein the first side-to-side distance is greater than the second side-to-side distance; and
- further comprising at least one small ballast resistor having a value of less than about 10 ohms and electrically connected in series with at least one elongated emitter finger in the plurality of emitter fingers.
22. The device of claim 21, wherein the value of the at least one small ballast resistor is less than about 5 ohms.
23. The device of claim 21, wherein the first side-to-side distance is at least twice as big as the second side-to-side distance.
24. The device of claim 21, wherein the at least one small ballast resistor is formed using a contact hole through a passivation layer to an emitter metal layer, wherein the contact hole has dimensions less than about 1 micron by 1 micron.
25. The device of claim 21, wherein the base includes a layer of GaAs, and wherein the width of at least one elongated emitter finger is less than about 1.2 microns.
26. The device of claim 21, wherein the base includes a layer of GaAs, and wherein the width of at least one elongated emitter finger is about 0.8 microns.
27. The device of claim 21, wherein the base includes a layer of GaAs, and wherein the thickness of the layer of GaAs is less than about 100 microns.
28. The device of claim 21, wherein the base includes a layer of GaAs, and wherein the thickness of the layer of GaAs is about 80 microns.
29. The device of claim 21, wherein the base includes a layer of GaAs, wherein the majority of the elongated emitter fingers have widths that are less than about 1.2 microns.
30. The device of claim 29, wherein the thickness of the layer of GaAs is less than about 100 microns.
31. A high power transistor comprising:
- a base, an emitter, a collector, and a plurality of emitter finger subcells, each emitter finger subcell comprising one or more elongated emitter fingers extending from and electrically connected to the emitter;
- wherein the emitter finger subcells are arranged side by side in a plurality of rows, each row extending between a first row end and a second row end and having a row center located at the midpoint between the first row end and the second row end;
- wherein the plurality of emitter finger subcells in at least one row in the plurality of rows includes a first pair of emitter finger subcells separated by a first side-to-side distance, and a second pair of emitter finger subcells separated by a second side-to-side distance, wherein the midpoint between the first pair of emitter finger subcells is positioned closer to the row center than the midpoint between the second pair of emitter finger subcells, and wherein the first side-to-side distance is greater than the second side-to-side distance; and
- further comprising at least one small ballast resistor having a value of less than about 10 ohms and electrically connected in series with at least one elongated emitter finger in the plurality of emitter finger subcells.
32. The device of claim 31, wherein each emitter finger subcell includes at least two elongated emitter fingers.
33. The device of claim 31, wherein the first side-to-side distance is at least twice as big as the second side-to-side distance.
34. The device of claim 31, wherein the plurality of rows includes a first row and a second row;
- wherein the distance between the row center of the first row and the row center of the second row is greater than the distance between the first row end of the first row and the first row end of the second row; and
- wherein the distance between the row center of the first row and the row center of the second row is greater than the distance between the second row end of the first row and the second row end of the second row.
35. The device of claim 34, wherein the plurality of rows further comprises a third row, wherein the third row is positioned between the first row and the second row, and wherein the third row is substantially straight.
36. The device of claim 31, wherein the base includes a layer of GaAs, and wherein the width of at least one elongated emitter finger is less than about 1.2 microns.
37. The device of claim 31, wherein the base includes a layer of GaAs, and wherein the thickness of the layer of GaAs is less than about 100 microns.
38. The device of claim 31, wherein the plurality of emitter finger subcells in at least one row in the plurality of rows includes a first subcell and a second subcell, wherein the first subcell is positioned closer to the row center than the second subcell, and wherein the number of elongated emitter fingers in the first subcell is zero or more and less than the number of elongated emitter fingers in the second subcell.
39. The device of claim 38, wherein the number of elongated emitter fingers in the first subcell is one or more.
40. The device of claim 31, wherein the plurality of emitter finger subcells in at least one row includes a first subcell and a second subcell, wherein the first subcell is positioned closer to the row center than the second subcell, and wherein the area of the elongated emitter fingers in the first subcell is less than the area of the elongated emitter fingers in the second subcell.
Type: Application
Filed: Nov 19, 2004
Publication Date: Jul 14, 2005
Inventors: Zhenqiang Ma (Middleton, WI), Ningyue Jiang (Madison, WI)
Application Number: 10/993,224