Superior mm-Wave Large Signal Power Amplifier Reliability of p-Type FET in a 45-nm Partially-Depleted Silicon-On-Insulator RF Technology

In this letter, we have explored the DC, small and large-signal RF reliability of the Power Amplifier (PA) cell for mm-wave applications under DC and RF stress. The PA cell comprises of a single transistor that employs 45RFSOI technology. For the first time here, a PA cell consisting of p-channel partially depleted Silicon-On-Insulator (PD-SOI) FET has been investigated for large-signal reliability behavior. At the same stress conditions, the impact of hot carrier degradation (HCD) on a p-channel FET (PFET) PA cell is also compared with the n-channel FET (NFET) PA cell. As the reliability of the PFET PA cell is superior than NFETs, a deeper investigation of hot carrier degradation and its impact on PA cell reliability is carried out. The PA cell is subjected to extensive RF characterization for varying DC stress and RF power at the gate terminal. The behavior of the time slope exponent of the PFET PA cell is studied to understand the nature of defects. Accelerated aging experiments using DC bias at drain/gate terminals and RF power at the gate terminal is performed. These results show that the RF reliability of the PFET PA cell is superior than its counterpart NFET PA cell at mm-wave frequencies.