Production DC screening techniques for RF performances of bipolar ICs

A novel approach for DC screening of the monolithic silicon bipolar RFICs for noise figure (NF) and power gain (S21) is presented. The proposed technique, which is applied to a 1.8 GHz driver amp, demonstrates excellent correlation between the resistance of a proposed test structure and the NF and S21of the RFIC. This study show that setting a limit on the base resistance of bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) is effective in screening the AC performances of any RFICs as well as discrete transistors.