Title :
Soft breakdown and hot carrier reliability of CMOS RF mixer and redesign
Author :
Qiang Li ; Wei Li ; Jinlong Zhang ; Yuan, J.S.
Author_Institution :
Sch. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Central Florida Univ., Orlando, FL, USA
Abstract :
In this paper, CMOS RF down-conversion mixer circuit hot-carrier (HC) and soft breakdown (SBD) reliability estimation and redesign is presented. First of all, MOS transistor reliability under analog operation was evaluated by experiment. The mixer circuit operation conditions for the occurrence of HC and SBD are analyzed, and a circuit performance model is presented to relate device degradation to circuit performance degradation. Finally, we propose mixer circuit redesign strategies, which reduce the HC and SBD problem. Simulation shows improved noise performance with similar gain, IIP3 and power consumption.
Keywords :
CMOS analogue integrated circuits; MOSFET; integrated circuit design; integrated circuit modelling; integrated circuit noise; integrated circuit reliability; microwave integrated circuits; microwave mixers; semiconductor device breakdown; semiconductor device reliability; 0.18 micron; CMOS RF down-conversion mixer; IIP3; MOS transistor reliability; analog operation; circuit performance model; gain; hot-carrier reliability; mixer circuit redesign strategies; nMOSFETs; noise performance; performance degradation; power consumption; redesign; simulation; soft breakdown reliability; transconductance transfer function; Circuit analysis; Circuit optimization; Circuit simulation; Degradation; Electric breakdown; Hot carriers; MOSFETs; Performance analysis; Radio frequency; Semiconductor device modeling;
Conference_Titel :
Microwave Symposium Digest, 2002 IEEE MTT-S International
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-7239-5
DOI :
10.1109/MWSYM.2002.1011668
