J4 ›› 2010, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (5): 898-903.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1001-2400.2010.05.022

• Original Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Injection damage of the integrated silicon low-noise amplifier

CHAI Chang-chun;ZHANG Bing;REN Xing-rong;LENG Peng   

  1. (Ministry of Education Key Lab. of Wide Band-Gap Semiconductor Materials and Devices, Xidian Univ., Xi'an  710071, China)
  • Received:2009-11-18 Online:2010-10-20 Published:2010-10-11
  • Contact: CHAI Chang-chun E-mail:ccchai@mail.xidian.edu.cn

Abstract:

The area between the base and the emitter of a bipolar active device inside the silicon and GaAs low noise amplifiers(LNA) is most vulnerable to energy injection. Besides the active device, the interior passive resistance of Si-LNA is also one of the elements vulnerable to external energy injection. To study the damage mechanism of energy injection and its effect on the performance parameters of LNA, the energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) analysis and the scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis of the Si-LNA pre-and post-energy injection have been made. The SEM analysis indicates that the passive resistance and the base electrode of a bipolar junction transisitor have been abnormal respectively after the injection of various kinds of energy. A comparion between the energy-dispersive X-ray spectrums of normal and abnormal regions shows an obvious change in the constituents of the abnormal region of an electrode. Simulation results of ADS2004A indicate that the increase in resistance caused by passive resistance damage after energy injection leads to the degenerations of the LNA noise figure and gain characteristic. Meanwhile, experimental results show that the noise figure NF is more sensitive to energy injection than the gain characteristic, i.e., the effect of energy injection on the noise figure is far stronger than that on the gain. Therefore, the change in the noise figure NF should be recognized as one of the significant criteria for the Si-LNA damage effect.

Key words: low noise amplifier(LNA), noise figure, energy injection, damage effect, passive resistance