Experimental investigation on the degradation of SiGe LNAs under different bias conditions induced by 3 MeV proton irradiation

Abstract

The 3 MeV proton irradiation effects on SiGe low noise amplifier (LNA) (NXP BGU7005) performance under different voltage supply VCC (0 V, 2.5 V) conditions were firstly experimental studied in this present work. The S parameters including S11, S22, S21, 1 dB compression point and noise figure (NF) of the test samples under different bias voltage supply were measured and compared before and after 3 MeV proton irradiation. The total proton irradiation fluence was 1 × 1015 protons/cm2. The maximum degradation quantities of the gain S21 and NF of the test samples under zero bias are measured respectively 1.6 dB and 1.2 dB. Compared with the samples under 2.5 V bias supply, the maximum degradation of S21 and NF are respectively 1.1 dB and 0.8 dB in the whole frequency band. It is noteworthy that the gain and NF of SiGe LNAs under zero-bias mode suffer enhanced degradation compared with those under normal bias supply. The key influence factors are discussed based on the correlation of the SiGe device and the LNA circuit. Different process of the ionization damage and displacement damage under zero-bias and 2.5 V bias voltage supply contributed to the degradation difference. The underlying physical mechanisms are analyzed and investigated.