Two ohmic contact systems for quantum effect devices and heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) were investigated and compared. Ni/Ge/Au/Ti/Au and Pd/Ge/Ti/Al were characterized for diffusion length after annealing and specific contact resistivity on chemical beam epitaxially grown In0.53Ga0.47As. It was found, in general, that the diffusion length could be controlled by varying the total metal thickness and that the specific contact resistivity maintained reasonably low values as long as the compositional ratio of each system remained constant. The diffusion length for Ni/Ge/Au/Ti/Au ranged from 1000 to 2000 Å and that of Pd/Ge/Ti/Al was ∼300 Å. In both cases the specific contact resistivity onn‐type InGaAs was 5×10−7Ω cm2. Furthermore, the Pd/Ge/Ti/Al was applied top‐type InGaAs and showed a specific contact resistivity of 3×10−6Ω cm2. Finally, both systems were used to fabricate an InGaAs/InP hot electron transistor and an InAlAs/InGaAs HBT with excellent direct‐current results.