Design of Radiation-Hardened RF Low-Noise Amplifiers Using Inverse-Mode SiGe HBTs

Author

Ickhyun Song ; Seungwoo Jung ; Lourenco, Nelson E. ; Raghunathan, Uppili S. ; Fleetwood, Zachary E. ; Zeinolabedinzadeh, Saeed ; Gebremariam, Tikurete B. ; Inanlou, Farzad ; Roche, Nicholas J.-H ; Khachatrian, Ani ; McMorrow, Dale ; Buchner, Stephen P. ;

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Georgia Inst. of Technol., Atlanta, GA, USA

Volume

61

Issue

6

fYear

2014

fDate

Dec. 2014

Firstpage

3218

Lastpage

3225

Abstract

A SiGe RF low-noise amplifier (LNA) with built-in tolerance to single-event transients is proposed. The LNA utilizes an inverse-mode SiGe HBT for the common-base transistor in a cascode core. This new cascode configuration exhibits reduced transient peaks and shorter transient durations compared to the conventional cascode one. The improved SET response was verified with through-wafer two-photon absorption pulsed-laser experiments and supported via mixed-mode TCAD simulations. In addition, analysis of the RF performance and the reliability issues associated with the inverse-mode operation further suggests this new cascode structure can be a strong contender for space-based applications. The LNA with the inverse-mode-based cascode core was fabricated in a 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS platform and has similar RF performance to the conventional schematic-based LNA, further validating the proposed approach.

Keywords

Ge-Si alloys; heterojunction bipolar transistors; low noise amplifiers; radiation hardening (electronics); radiofrequency amplifiers; technology CAD (electronics); LNA; SET response; SiGe; SiGe BiCMOS platform; SiGe RF low-noise amplifier; common-base transistor; inverse-mode SiGe HBT; inverse-mode operation; inverse-mode-based cascode core; mixed-mode TCAD simulations; single-event transients; size 130 nm; through-wafer two-photon absorption pulsed-laser experiments; Heterojunction bipolar transistors; Low-noise amplifiers; Radiation hardening (electronics); Radio frequency; Silicon germanium; Transient analysis; Cascode; inverse-mode; low-noise amplifier (LNA); mixed-mode simulation; pulsed-laser; radiation-hardening-by-design (RHBD); siGe HBT; single-event effect (SEE); single-event transient (SET); two photon absorption (TPA);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNS.2014.2363631

Filename

6940327