Mosfet Modeling for RF IC Design

Abstract

High frequency (HF) AC and noise modeling of MOSFETs for radio frequency (RF) integrated circuit (IC) design is discussed. Equivalent circuits representing both intrinsic and extrinsic components in a MOSFET are analyzed to obtain a physics-based RF model. Modeling of the intrinsic device and the extrinsic components is disussed by accounting for the important physical effects at both DC and HF. Based on the Y-parameter analysis of the equivalent circuit model, procedures of the HF model parameter extraction are also developed. With the discussed approaches, a sub-circuit RF model incorporating the modeling of parasitics is presented. This model is compared with the measured data for both y parameter and fr characteristics. Good model accuracy is achieved against the measurements for a 0.25μm RF CMOS technology. The non-quasi-static (NQS) modeling issue has also been discussed by using the BSIM3v3 based RF model to predict the HF characteristics of devices with serious NQS effects. Further, noise modeling issues are discussed by analyzing the theoretical and experimental results in both the flicker noise and thermal noise modeling. Modeling efforts to in corporate new physical effects are needed to predict better the flicker noise characteristics in today's MOSFETs. A detailed analysis of the HF noise parameters has been conducted to establish the relationship between the noise parameters preferred by circuit designers and obtained by HF noise measurement. Analytical calcultion of the noise parameters has also been discussed to understand the noise characteristics with/without some parasitic components such as gate and substrate resistances as well as the influence of the induced gate noise. The HF noise predictivities of several HF noise models are also examined with the measured data. The results show that the BSIM3v3 based RF model can predict the channel thermal noise better than the other models.