Experimental Monitoring of Aging in CMOS RF Linear Power Amplifiers: Correlation Between Device and Circuit Degradation

The high-frequency operation of RF circuits poses additional challenges to the prediction of their reliability during the initial design phase. Among them, the availability of device compact models that describe their aging under RF conditions and the model experimental validation at circuit level. In this work, RF test circuits that allow establishing device-circuit aging correlations are described. Two different 2.45 GHz power amplifier circuits with similar performance, implemented in a 65 nm CMOS technology, have been designed and experimentally characterized. Results demonstrate the importance of the topology selection to guarantee robustness against aging effects, and thus the need to predict their parameter degradation during the initial design phase, accounting for the actual DC and RF device operation conditions. With that purpose, we propose a semi-empirical MOSFET compact model that, based on the RMS equivalent voltages at the transistor terminals when operated within a RF circuit, can provide an accurate estimation of the device and circuit degradations.

[1]  G. G. Stokes.  "J." , 1890, The New Yale Book of Quotations.

[2]  Chenming Hu,et al.  Hot-Electron-Induced MOSFET Degradation - Model, Monitor, and Improvement , 1985, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[3]  Chenming Hu,et al.  Hot-electron-induced MOSFET degradation—Model, monitor, and improvement , 1985, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[4]  M. Ruberto,et al.  Consideration of age degradation in the RF performance of CMOS radio chips for high volume manufacturing , 2005, 2005 IEEE Radio Frequency integrated Circuits (RFIC) Symposium - Digest of Papers.

[5]  G. Palmisano,et al.  Degradation Mechanisms in CMOS Power Amplifiers Subject to Radio-Frequency Stress and Comparison to the DC Case , 2007, 2007 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium Proceedings. 45th Annual.

[6]  Xiaojun Li,et al.  Compact Modeling of MOSFET Wearout Mechanisms for Circuit-Reliability Simulation , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Device and Materials Reliability.

[7]  Georges G. E. Gielen,et al.  An analytical model for hot carrier degradation in nanoscale CMOS suitable for the simulation of degradation in analog IC applications , 2008, Microelectron. Reliab..

[8]  G. Ghidini,et al.  Channel-Hot-Carrier Degradation and Bias Temperature Instabilities in CMOS Inverters , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[9]  T. Vanhoucke,et al.  RF reliability of short channel NMOS devices , 2009, 2009 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium.

[10]  Ying-Zong Juang,et al.  DC and RF Degradation Induced by High RF Power Stresses in 0.18- $\mu\hbox{m}$ nMOSFETs , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Device and Materials Reliability.

[11]  Vincent Huard,et al.  Hot-Carrier Stress Effect on a CMOS 65-nm 60-GHz One-Stage Power Amplifier , 2010, IEEE Electron Device Letters.

[12]  M. Nafría,et al.  Probabilistic defect occupancy model for NBTI , 2011, 2011 International Reliability Physics Symposium.

[13]  W. Marsden.  I and J , 2012 .

[14]  Daniel Gloria,et al.  Reliability Characterization and Modeling Solution to Predict Aging of 40-nm MOSFET DC and RF Performances Induced by RF Stresses , 2012, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[15]  J. Martin-Martinez,et al.  RELAB: A tool to include MOSFETs BTI and variability in SPICE simulators , 2012, 2012 International Conference on Synthesis, Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Methods and Applications to Circuit Design (SMACD).

[16]  M. Rafik,et al.  Interaction between BTI and HCI degradation in High-K devices , 2013, 2013 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS).

[17]  Georges Gielen,et al.  Analog IC Reliability in Nanometer CMOS , 2013 .

[18]  Swaraj Mahato,et al.  Impact of transistor aging on RF low noise amplifier performance of 28nm technology: Reliability assessment , 2013, 2013 IEEE 20th International Conference on Electronics, Circuits, and Systems (ICECS).

[19]  Seungjin Choo,et al.  Hot carrier reliability characterization in consideration of self-heating in FinFET technology , 2016, 2016 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS).

[20]  Chang-Chih Chen,et al.  System-Level Modeling of Microprocessor Reliability Degradation Due to Bias Temperature Instability and Hot Carrier Injection , 2016, IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems.

[21]  Francisco V. Fernández,et al.  CASE: A reliability simulation tool for analog ICs , 2017, 2017 14th International Conference on Synthesis, Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Methods and Applications to Circuit Design (SMACD).

[22]  Javier Martin-Martinez,et al.  MOSFET degradation dependence on input signal power in a RF power amplifier , 2017 .

[23]  X. Aragones,et al.  Design of a Broadband CMOS RF Power Amplifier to establish device-circuit aging correlations , 2017, 2017 International Conference of Microelectronic Test Structures (ICMTS).

[24]  Montserrat Nafría,et al.  Aging in CMOS RF Linear Power Amplifiers: Experimental Comparison and Modeling , 2019, 2019 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS).

[25]  Francisco V. Fernández,et al.  New method for the automated massive characterization of Bias Temperature Instability in CMOS transistors , 2019, 2019 Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition (DATE).