Semiconductor Device Group

The first paper on SiGe can be traced back to 1955 with work on the magnetoresistance of silicon germanium alloys [1]. The first mention of a SiGe device was actually in the original patent for the bipolar transistor where the idea of a SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) was discussed with the description of the physics in the 1950s [2]. Such a transistor required epitaxial growth of Si/SiGe heterostructures and this was not demonstrated until 1975 by Erich Kasper, Jans-Horst Herzog and H. Kibbel at the then AEG Research Centre (now Daimler Chrylser) in Ulm, Germany using molecular beam epitaxy [3]. The field has since expanded substantially with the 1980s dominated by developing growth technology, the 1990s by HBT developments and the start of the 2000s has been dominated by strained-Si CMOS.

[1] M. Glickman, Physical Review 100, 1146 (1955)
[2] Herb Kroemer, Proceedings IRE 45, 1535 (1957)
[3] Erich Kasper, Jans-Horst Herzog and H. Kibbel, Applied Physics 8, 199 (1975)