Comparison of hot carrier-induced RF performance degradation in H-gate and T-gate SOI MOSFETs

The RF performance degradation of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) MOSFETs with H-gate and T-gate structures after hot carrier stressing has been investigated. Our experimental results show that the RF performance degradation is more significant than the dc performance degradation after hot carrier stressing. Also, the degradation of the H-gate device is more significant than that of the T-gate device due to the higher drain current. Since the degradation of minimum noise figure is the most significant, the hot carrier effects should be taken into account in the design of LNA using the H-gate device although its RF performance is better than that of the T-gate device.

[1]  M. J. Deen,et al.  Effects of hot-carrier stress on the RF performance of 0.18 /spl mu/m technology NMOSFETs and circuits , 2002, 2002 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium. Proceedings. 40th Annual (Cat. No.02CH37320).

[2]  D. Ang,et al.  A study of hot carrier degradation in NMOSEET's by gate capacitance and charge pumping current , 1995 .

[3]  Chong-Gun Yu,et al.  RF performance degradation in nMOS transistors due to hot carrier effects , 2000 .

[4]  J. Pelloie,et al.  Hot-carrier effects and reliable lifetime prediction in deep submicron N- and P-channel SOI MOSFETs , 1998 .

[5]  C. Raynaud,et al.  Impact of floating body and BS-tied architectures on SOI MOSFET's radio-frequency performances , 2000, 2000 IEEE International SOI Conference. Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37125).

[6]  L. Pantisano,et al.  RF performance vulnerability to hot carrier stress and consequent breakdown in low power 90 nm RFCMOS , 2003, IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting 2003.

[7]  H. Hughes,et al.  Hot-electron-induced degradation of front and back channels in partially and fully depleted SIMOX MOSFETs , 1992, IEEE Electron Device Letters.

[8]  N. K. Annamalai,et al.  Leakage currents in SOI MOSFETs , 1988 .

[9]  J.A.M. Geelen,et al.  An improved de-embedding technique for on-wafer high-frequency characterization , 1991, Proceedings of the 1991 Bipolar Circuits and Technology Meeting.

[10]  H. Fukui.  Optimal noise figure of microwave GaAs MESFET's , 1979, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[11]  K.A. Jenkins,et al.  Suppression of the SOI floating-body effects by linked-body device structure , 1996, 1996 Symposium on VLSI Technology. Digest of Technical Papers.

[12]  Hong Shick Min,et al.  Characterization issues of gate geometry in multifinger structure for RF-SOI MOSFETs , 2002 .

[13]  G. Knoblinger,et al.  A new model for thermal channel noise of deep submicron MOSFETs and its application in RF-CMOS design , 2000, 2000 Symposium on VLSI Circuits. Digest of Technical Papers (Cat. No.00CH37103).

[14]  C. Enz,et al.  MOS transistor modeling for RF IC design , 2000, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[15]  Wei Li,et al.  RF circuit performance degradation due to soft breakdown and hot-carrier effect in deep-submicrometer CMOS technology , 2001 .

[16]  James B. Kuo,et al.  Low-Voltage SOI CMOS VLSI Devices and Circuits , 2001 .

[17]  Albert Chin,et al.  The minimum noise figure and mechanism as scaling RF MOSFETs from 0.18 to 0.13 /spl mu/m technology nodes , 2003, IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFIC) Symposium, 2003.

[18]  Chun-Yen Chang,et al.  Impacts of gate structure on dynamic threshold SOI nMOSFETs , 2002 .

[19]  Domine M. W. Leenaerts,et al.  A 2.4-GHz 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS self-biased cascode power amplifier , 2003 .

[20]  C.H. Ling,et al.  Observation of MOSFET degradation due to electrical stressing through gate-to-source and gate-to-drain capacitance measurement , 1991, IEEE Electron Device Letters.