Accurate geometry scalable complementary metal oxide semiconductor modelling of low-power 90 nm amplifier circuits

Abstract

This paper proposes a technique to accurately estimate radio frequency behaviour of low-power 90 nm amplifier circuits with geometry scalable discrete complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) modelling. Rather than characterising individual elements, the scheme is able to predict gain, noise and reflection loss of low-noise amplifier (LNA) architectures made with bias, active and passive components. It reduces number of model parameters by formulating dependent functions in symmetric distributed modelling and shows that simple fitting factors can account for extraneous (interconnect) effects in LNA structure. Equivalent-circuit model equations based on physical structure and describing layout parasites are developed for major amplifier elements like metal–insulator–metal (MIM) capacitor, spiral symmetric inductor, polysilicon (PS) resistor and bulk RF transistor. The models are geometry scalable with respect to feature dimensions, i.e. MIM/PS width and length, outer-dimension/turns of planar inductor and channel-width/fingers of active device. Results obtained with the CMOS models are compared against measured literature data for two 1.2 V amplifier circuits where prediction accuracy for RF parameters (S(21), noise figure, S(11), S(22)) lies within the range of 92–99%.

Keywords

• CMOS analogue integrated circuits
• integrated circuit modelling
• radiofrequency amplifiers
• low noise amplifiers
• equivalent circuits
• low-power electronics
• geometry scalable complementary metal oxide semiconductor modelling
• low-power amplifier circuits
• CMOS modelling
• radio frequency behaviour estimation
• low-noise amplifier architectures
• LNA architectures
• reflection loss
• gain prediction
• active-passive components
• symmetric distributed modelling
• dependent functions
• equivalent-circuit model equations
• layout parasites
• physical structure
• metal-insulator-metal capacitor
• spiral symmetric inductor
• polysilicon resistor
• bulk RF transistor
• MIM-PS width
• channel-width-fingers
• active devices
• RF parameters
• size 90 nm
• voltage 1.2 V