Investigation of manufacturing variations of planar InP/InGaAs avalanche photodiodes for optical receivers

Planar InP/InGaAs avalanche photodiodes are widely used for high-speed optical receivers in optical fiber communication systems. Even though these avalanche photodiodes offer the excellent characteristics in high-speed operation, the performance metrics are affected by manufacturing parameter variations considerably. In this paper, the effects of manufacturing variations on the device performance are investigated. In order to build a photodiode model, the test structures were fabricated and the measured current-voltage characteristics were compared with the simulated data to verify the model. After the model verification, the variations of the breakdown voltage and punch-through voltage according to the different manufacturing parameters such as multiplication layer width and charge sheet density are examined. Based on the results, the manufacturability of the avalanche photodiodes can be improved by analyzing the manufacturing variations. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.