Zachary Fleetwood has received the 2015 IEEE Bipolar/BiCMOS Circuits and Technology Meeting (BCTM) Best Student Paper Award. Held on October 26-28 in Boston, Massachusetts, the IEEE BCTM is the premier international forum for presenting work on advancements in bipolar technology, devices, and circuits.

Fleetwood’s paper, entitled “Optimizing the Vertical Profile of SiGe HBTs to Mitigate Radiation-Induced Upsets,” coauthored with Brian Wier, Uppili Raghunathan, Nelson Lourenco, Michael Oakley, Alvin Joseph, and John D. Cressler, presented a novel device modification to enable Gb/sec (processing speed) operation in a space radiation environment. By operating the device in reverse active, sensitive junction areas are significantly reduced and individual particle strikes have a substantially lower impact on device/circuit operation.

Fleetwood’s work presents, for the first time, processing-level modifications aimed directly at enhancing SiGe HBT (Silicon-Germanium Heterojunction Bipolar Transistor) inverse-mode operation in an intense radiation environment. The results from this work show an increasing interest in SiGe HBTs for advanced space systems where cutting-edge solutions are necessary for burgeoning missions to Jupiter and Mars.

Fleetwood is a Ph.D. student at the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and is advised by Cressler, who holds the Schlumberger Chair in Electronics. This work is supported by Global Foundries and DTRA.