Reliability evaluation of class-E and class-a power amplifiers with nanoscaled CMOS technology

Author

Lin, Wei-Cheng ; Wu, Tsung-Chien ; Tsai, Yi-Hung ; Du, Long-Jei ; King, Ya-Chin

Author_Institution

Microelectron. Lab., Nat. Tsing-Hua Univ., Hsinchu, Taiwan

Volume

52

Issue

7

fYear

2005

fDate

7/1/2005 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1478

Lastpage

1483

Abstract

Circuit reliability of class-E and class-A power amplifiers is investigated based on a newly developed degradation subcircuit model. Measured degradation characteristics on the fabricated circuits agree well with the simulation predictions. Using this model, we have found that the class-E amplifier degrades faster than a class-A amplifier, due to a much higher stress level during switching. With a drastic decrease of PAE, a shorter lifetime is expected for a class-E amplifier.

Keywords

CMOS analogue integrated circuits; integrated circuit modelling; integrated circuit reliability; nanotechnology; power amplifiers; class-A power amplifier; class-E power amplifier; nanoscaled CMOS technology; reliability evaluation; subcircuit model; Analog circuits; CMOS technology; Degradation; Hot carriers; Power amplifiers; Predictive models; Radio frequency; Radiofrequency amplifiers; Semiconductor device modeling; Stress; Class-A amplifier; Fowler–Nordheim (FN) stress; class-E amplifier; hot-carrier(HC) stress; reliability;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TED.2005.850639

Filename

1459107