Abstract: It is Shown from storage lifetime test and low-frequency noise measurement for bipolar transistors that the degradation of current gain β occurs for most of the tested devices and is strongly correlated with the initial 1/f noise in thsse devices, So the 1/f noise measurement can be used as a fast and non-destructive tool to evaluate the storage lifetime of the devices. The experimental and theoretical evidences as well as a Prediction model for the new method are presented in this paper.

Key words: 1/f noise, storage lifetime, bipolar transistor, degradation