High Frequency Analysis of Silicon RF MOS Transistors

Sammanfattning: Today, the silicon technology is well established for RF-applications (f~1-100 GHz), with emphasis on the lower frequencies (f < 5 GHz). The field of RF power devices is extensive concerning materials and devices. One of the important RF-devices is the silicon LDMOS transistor. A large extent of the research presented in the thesis concerns studies of this device, which have resulted in increased understanding of the device behavior and improved performance. The thesis starts with a brief survey of the RF-field, including the LDMOS transistor, followed by a description of the methods used in the investigations; simulations, modeling and measurements. Specific results presented in the appended papers are also briefly summarized.A new concept for LDMOS transistors, which allows for both high frequency and high voltage operation, has been developed and characterized. World-record performance in terms of output power density was obtained: over 1 W/mm at 50 V and 3.2 GHz. Further understanding and improvements of the device are achieved using simulations and modeling. For determination of model parameters a new general parameter extraction technique was developed. The method has been successfully used for a large variety of high-frequency devices, and has been frequently used in the modeling work in this thesis.Important properties of RF-power devices are the device linearity and power efficiency. Extensive studies regarding the efficiency were conducted using numerical simulations and modeling of the off-state output resistance, which is correlated to the efficiency. The results show that significant improvements can be obtained for devices on both bulk- and SOI-substrates, using thin high-resistivity substrates and very low-resistivity SOI-substrates, respectively.Finally a new approach to drastically reduce substrate crosstalk by using very low-resistivity SOI substrate is proposed. Experimentally, a reduction of 20-40 dB was demonstrated in the GHz range compared to high-resistivity SOI substrate.