The silicon-on-sapphire technology for RF integrated circuits: potential and limitations

Author

Lam, Sang ; Ki, Wing Hung ; Chan, Mansun

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Electron. Eng., Hong Kong Univ. of Sci. & Technol., Kowloon, China

Volume

1

fYear

2001

fDate

6/23/1905 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

483

Abstract

The RF performances of both active and passive devices on the 0.5-μm silicon-on-sapphire (SOS) technology is comparatively investigated with a 0.5-μm bulk counterpart. Although the SOS technology shows better inductor quality factor (Q) of 3 to 4 times improvement, the usable frequency range lies only within about 2-6 GHz. Further, the noise performance of the SOS MOSFET is in general inferior as compared to that of the bulk CMOS by 1 dB. It degrades further at the post DC kink region due to the floating body effects. Design issues are discussed for RF integrated circuits implemented on SOS technology

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; MOSFET; Q-factor; inductors; integrated circuit design; integrated circuit noise; integrated circuit technology; sapphire; silicon-on-insulator; 0.5 micron; 2 to 6 GHz; CMOS design; MOSFET; RF integrated circuit; active device; floating body effect; inductor quality factor; noise parameters; passive device; silicon-on-sapphire technology; CMOS process; CMOS technology; Inductors; Integrated circuit measurements; Integrated circuit technology; Q factor; Radio frequency; Radiofrequency integrated circuits; Semiconductor device noise; Silicon on insulator technology;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

TENCON 2001. Proceedings of IEEE Region 10 International Conference on Electrical and Electronic Technology

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7101-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/TENCON.2001.949640

Filename

949640