Soft Breakdown Effects Research Articles

Electrical Transport in a Semimetal–Semiconductor Nanocomposite

Measurements are presented on the low-field electrical conductivity and moderate-field current-voltage characteristics in a nanocomposite structure of ErAs particles in an In0.53Ga0.47As host with Be compensation. The electrical conductivity displays strong temperature dependence with two types of transport mechanisms. At ~ 205 K and above, the low-field conductivity appears to be dominated by free electrons in In0.53Ga0.47As. Between 55 and 205 K, the conductivity is well explained by variable-range hopping, sigma = A exp(-B/T1/4), via Mott's law. The transport displays a soft breakdown effect at moderate bias fields that grows in threshold field with decreasing temperature. This is attributed to impact ionization of the Be dopants.

Hot carrier and soft breakdown effects on LNA performance for ultra wideband communications

This paper systematically investigates the hot carrier (HC) and soft breakdown (SBD) effects on CMOS low noise amplifier (LNA) for the ultra wide-band (UWB) of 3.1 to 7 GHz. After the MOSFET device RF parameter degradations due to HC and SBD effects are experimentally extracted, the HC and SBD induced performance degradations of the LNA for UWB are evaluated for 0.16 μm CMOS technology, including s-parameters, noise figure, and stability factor. This work can help RF designers to design more reliable LNA circuits for upcoming UWB applications.

CMOS RF and DC Reliability Subject to Hot Carrier Stress and Oxide Soft Breakdown

Hot carrier and soft breakdown effects are evaluated experimentally. A methodology to systematically study hot carrier and soft breakdown effects on RF circuits is developed. Device stress measurement and SpectreRF simulation are conducted to evaluate the impact of hot carrier and soft breakdown effects on RF circuits such as low-noise amplifier and voltage-controlled oscillator performances. Two design techniques to build reliable RF circuits are proposed.

Hot-carrier and soft-breakdown effects on VCO performance

This paper systematically investigates the hot-carrier- and soft-breakdown-induced performance degradation in a CMOS voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) used in phase-locked-loop frequency synthesizers. After deriving the closed-form equations to predict phase noise and VCO gain, we relate VCO RF performance such as phase noise, tuning range, and gain of VCO subject to electrical stress. The circuit degradations predicted by analytical model equations are verified by SpectraRF simulation using parameters extracted from the experimental data of 0.16 /spl mu/m CMOS technology. BERT simulation results give VCO performance degradations versus operation time.

Analysis of the large‐signal characteristics of InP/InGaAs‐based optoelectronic preamplifiers

A model for soft breakdown effects in Inp/InGaAs-based single HBTs is developed. The effects of large-signal excitation on the operational characteristics of optoelectronic preamplifiers, such as the transducer and transimpedance gain of individual transistors, are addressed. These effects depend on optoelectronic integrated-circuit (OEIC) design and are associated with self-bias variations due to input power levels. Cascode designs are relatively immune to these effects, whereas basic coupled amplifiers are more sensitive (9-dB Ω vs. 3-dB Ω transimpedance reduction) for the same input power increase from −35 to −5 dBm. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Analysis of the large-signal characteristics of InP/InGaAs-based optoelectronic preamplifiers

A model for soft breakdown effects in Inp/InGaAs-based single HBTs is developed. The effects of large-signal excitation on the operational characteristics of optoelectronic preamplifiers, such as the transducer and transimpedance gain of individual transistors, are addressed. These effects depend on optoelectronic integrated-circuit (OEIC) design and are associated with self-bias variations due to input power levels. Cascode designs are relatively immune to these effects, whereas basic coupled amplifiers are more sensitive (9-dB Ω vs. 3-dB Ω transimpedance reduction) for the same input power increase from −35 to −5 dBm. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Extensions of the Chalmers nonlinear HEMT and MESFET model

The ability to simulate temperature, dispersion, and soft-breakdown effects as well as a new /spl alpha/ dependence was added to the Chalmers nonlinear model for high electron mobility transistor (HEMT's) and metal semiconductor field-effect transistor (MESFET's). DC, pulsed dc, low frequency (10 Hz-10 MHz), RF, and small signal S-parameter measurements (1-18 GHz) have been made on a large number of commercial HEMT and MESFET devices from different manufacturers in the temperature range 17-400 K in order to evaluate the validity of the model extensions.

Large-signal characteristics of InP-based heterojunction bipolar transistors and optoelectronic cascode transimpedance amplifiers

A large-signal model for InP/InGaAs-based single HBTs incorporating soft-breakdown effects to the LIBRA Gummel-Poon (GP) model is developed and its validity is established from DC to microwave frequencies and over a wide range of input excitation levels. The large-signal characteristics of a cascode InP-based transimpedance optoelectronic preamplifier employing such devices are studied. Gain compression for the preamplifier was found to take place at an input power level of -20 dBm. Input power excitation varying from -65 to -5 dBm results in a degradation of the amplifier transimpedance gain of the order of 3 dBn. Experimental and theoretical characteristics are presented for the InP-based HBTs and transimpedance amplifier. Self-biasing effects are suggested as possible origin of the transimpedance variations with input power.