Aging in CMOS RF Linear Power Amplifiers: An Experimental Study

An extensive experimental analysis of the hot carrier injection (HCI) and bias temperature instability (BTI) aging effects on RF linear power amplifiers (PAs) is presented in this article. Two different 2.45-GHz PA topologies have been implemented a CMOS 65-nm technology: one based classical common-source (CS) choke inductor another complementary current-reuse (CR) circuit, both them producing similar gain output 1-dB compression point (P -1dB ). These circuits stressed to produce accelerated degradation, by applying increasing supply (V xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">DD ) voltages or input powers (PIN). The degradation transistor parameters (threshold voltage mobility), dc (I xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">dc current), performance (gain, matching, point) has simultaneously measured. This allowed us observe how reduced CR results higher robustness its compared with CS circuit. equivalent root-mean-square (rms) proposed as an observable metric assess combined + stress applied semianalytical model, providing comprehension link between conditions under which circuit operated, parameters, current performance.