RF performance degradation in nMOS transistors due to hot carrier effects

This paper reports the hot electron induced RF performance degradation in m ultifinger gate nMOS transistors within the general frame work of the degra dation mechanism. The RF performance degradation of hot-carrier stressed nM OS transistors can be explained by the transconductance degradation, which is resulted from the interface state generation. It has been found that the pr performance degradation, especially minimum noise figure degradation, i s more significant than de performance degradation. From the experimental c orrelation between RF and de performance degradation, RF performance degrad ation can be predicted just by the measurement of de performance degradatio n or the initial substrate current. From our experimental results, hot elec tron induced RF performance degradation should be taken into consideration in the design of the CMOS RF integrated circuits.