FAST PREDICTION AND OPTIMIZATION OF YIELD IN GALLIUM-ARSENIDE LARGE-SIGNAL MMICS

A study on the effects of the geometrical and physical parameters of t he GaAs MMIC process on the yield of large-signal circuits is presente d, Large-signal yield analysis as well as large-signal yield optimizat ion are performed using a large-signal lumped-element MIESFET model re lated to MMIC process parameters, and suitable for implementation in c ommercial microwave CAD tools, The characterization of all the statist ical variables of a large-signal circuit provides a better understandi ng of the yield behavior, In particular, the sensitivity of large-sign al yield to MMIC process parameters is computed and the statistical be haviour of each parameter is presented by means of yield sensitivity h istograms. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.