The hot carrier injection stress effect on a 65 nm low-noise amplifier at the 70 GHz range of operation has been studied. The experimental data show that the minimum noise figure increases ( ~2 dB) and the maximum small-signal power gain decreases (~3 dB) after 10 h of HCI overstress due to transconductance degradation as evidenced by 65 nm individual transistor measurement.

Hot Carrier Injection Stress Effect on a 65 nm LNA at 70 GHz

This work shows the excellent HCI (hot-carrier injection) reliability that 22FDX demonstrates for mmWave PA applications. The underlying device physics to explain this performance are also shown. Due to the fact that fully depleted SOI (FDSOI) eliminates the lateral bipolar device, the MOSFETs in 22FDX® technology have an increased BVDSs when compared to a device in a partially depleted SOI (PDSOI) technology. A 2-stack PA is presented that demonstrates excellent reliability against all HCI stress. The device aging model is built based on the device stress data specific for PA applications. RelXpert is used to simulate device aging based on the model and suggests excellent PA reliability even under the worst mismatch condition.

Excellent 22FDX Hot-Carrier Reliability for PA Applications

A hot carrier ageing model previously validated on a one-stage 60-GHz power amplifier (PA) is demonstrated to be able to predict the degradation of the characteristic parameters for multistage high-performance millimeter-wave (mmW) PAs. The increase in the threshold voltage, the decrease in the transconductance, and the output conductance of the MOSFETs caused by hot carriers leads to a degradation in performance of the PAs. Consequently, by using this ageing model, the mmW PA lifetime can be extracted. A new PA is then designed, taking into account the ageing effects, and is shown to be reliable during ten years. This amplifier exhibits a power gain of 20 dB, an output 1-dB compression point of 12.5 dBm with 6.6% power-added efficiency, and a saturated output power of 16 dBm at 60 GHz.

Design-in-Reliable Millimeter-Wave Power Amplifiers in a 65-nm CMOS Process

MOSFET degradation dependence on input signal power in a RF power amplifier

A cascode class-E power amplifier (PA) operating at 5.2 GHz has been designed using Advanced Design System simulation. RF circuit performances such as output power and power-added efficiency before and after RF stress have been experimentally investigated. The measured output power, power-added efficiency, and linearity after high-input-power RF stress at elevated supply voltage show significant circuit degradations. The impact of hot-carrier injection and gate oxide soft breakdown on cascode class-E PA reliability is discussed.

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Experimental Verification of RF Stress Effect on Cascode Class-E PA Performance and Reliability

The effects of RF hot-carrier stress on the characteristics of 60-GHz power amplifiers (PAs) on a CMOS 65-nm process are investigated, for the first time, in this letter. A reliability study is made on a one-stage PA to validate an aging model and the degradation explanation. A drop of 16% of the gain, 17% of the 1-dB output compression point (OCP1 dB), and 17% of the Psat are measured at 60 GHz after 50 h of stress under Vdd = 1.65 V with Pin = 0 dBm and Vdd = 1.9 V with Pin = -10 dBm at 60-GHz frequency.

Xavier Mescot

Papers

Hot-Carrier Stress Effect on a CMOS 65-nm 60-GHz One-Stage Power Amplifier