We report on the degradation of MOS transistors under RF stress. Hot-carrier degradation, NBTI and gate dielectric breakdown are investigated. The findings are compared to established voltage-and field driven models. The experimental results indicate that the existing models are well applicable into the GHz range to describe degradation of MOS transistors in an RF circuit. The probability of gate dielectric breakdown rapidly reduces at such high stress frequencies, offering added design margin for RF power circuits such as power amplifiers for mobile communication.
We have optimized 3 key RF devices realized in standard logic 90 nm CMOS technology and report a record performance in terms of n-MOS maximum oscillation frequency fmaz (280 GHz), varactoi tuning range and varactor and inductor quality factor. gration design rules the source and drain interconnect is made wider than the minimum design rule and realized in the metal levels 2, 3, and 4. For characterization. several of these unit cells are placed in parallel to achieve a total width of 120 pm. Figs. 2 and 3 illustrate the standard extraction of the RF figures of merit f~ and fmo. from measurements of the current gain H21 and Mason's gain (U), taken up to 110 GHz, where all in-17.6.1
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