Abstract
To accelerate the degradation of critical specifications of CMOS power amplifiers (PAs), this paper proposes a new measurement method that introduces radio frequency (RF) stress in the thermal shock test of CMOS PAs. The experimental results show that the proposed method is effective. The degradation of key PA specifications such as output power and power-added efficiency can accelerate under RF stress. Its degradation speed is faster than that under no RF stress. Possible reasons for the degradation of crucial PA specifications accelerated by RF stress are discussed and analyzed in detail in this paper. The method proposed in this paper can effectively reduce the measurement time and cost to study the degradation of critical specifications of the CMOS-based PA. This method can be used for scientific research on the performance degradation of microwave/RF circuits and devices and aging experiments of electronic products before they leave the factory.
Highlights
The CMOS power amplifier (PA) is one of the critical components in the wireless transmitter [1], which is widely used by multiple applications, such as commercial and military radars, phased-array systems, and communication satellites [2]
When the input power is 12 dBm, the DC current of PA degrades to 120.1 mA and 112.6 mA after 25 and 105 thermal cycles under radio frequency (RF) stress, respectively. This shows that the magnitude of the degradation of the DC current of the PA under RF stress is relatively increased by 45.2% compared to that without RF stress
This illustrates that the introduction of RF stress in the thermal shock test can effectively accelerate the degradation of the DC current of the PA
Summary
The CMOS power amplifier (PA) is one of the critical components in the wireless transmitter [1], which is widely used by multiple applications, such as commercial and military radars, phased-array systems, and communication satellites [2]. When the input power is 12 dBm, the DC current of PA degrades to 120.1 mA and 112.6 mA after 25 and 105 thermal cycles under RF stress, respectively. This shows that after 105 thermal cycles, the output power of the PA degrades by 1.39 dBm and 0.85 dBm with and without RF stress, respectively.
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