Title :
Gate oxide breakdown on low noise and power amplifier performance
Author :
Hong Yang ; Smith, W. ; Yuan, J.S.
Author_Institution :
Sch. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Univ. of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA
Abstract :
This paper, for the first time, studies the influence that nMOSFET gate oxide breakdown (BD) has on the performance of CMOS low noise amplifiers (LNA) and power amplifiers (PA) using an equivalent RF circuit model. Cascode LNAs are found to be more reliable than common source LNAs in terms of gate oxide reliability. It is shown for a class-E PA, oxide breakdown effects lead to an increase in the switching transistor\´s "on" voltage, which, in turn leads to substantial decreases in the output power and drain efficiency.
Keywords :
CMOS integrated circuits; MOSFET; UHF amplifiers; UHF power amplifiers; circuit simulation; equivalent circuits; integrated circuit measurement; integrated circuit modelling; integrated circuit reliability; semiconductor device breakdown; semiconductor device models; semiconductor device reliability; 1.8 GHz; 950 MHz; CMOS low noise amplifier performance; CMOS power amplifiers; PA BD; cascode/common source LNA reliability; class-E PA oxide breakdown effects; equivalent RF circuit models; gate oxide reliability; nMOSFET gate oxide breakdown effects; output power/drain efficiency reduction; switching transistor on voltage increase; Breakdown voltage; Circuit noise; Electric breakdown; Lead compounds; Low-noise amplifiers; MOSFET circuits; Power generation; Radio frequency; Radiofrequency amplifiers; Semiconductor device modeling;
Conference_Titel :
Microwave Symposium Digest, 2003 IEEE MTT-S International
Conference_Location :
Philadelphia, PA, USA
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-7695-1
DOI :
10.1109/MWSYM.2003.1211056
