Robust predictability of parasitic effects during the physical design of RF products

The complexity of today´s RF products is growing in such a way that taking into account the physical design effects in the early design phase is key to successful designing. In this paper, the currently used simulation methodology for RF design has been improved by taking parasitic effects (both on-chip and off-chip) into account and thus better predictability of silicon performance has been accomplished. Results from simulation and silicon measurements of different RF designs (6 GHz LNA, 30 GHz Mixer, and 50 GHz Transmission Line) demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed simulation methodology. The improved simulation methodology is achieved by 1) using parasitic extraction, now including self- and mutual inductance effects, or 2.5D electromagnetic simulation to map the on-chip parasitics, 2) using 3D electromagnetic simulation to model the off-chip effects of the printed circuit board and chip-package and 3) applying the proper de-embedding method to exclude unwanted parasitics. Thus we have achieved up to 40% higher predictability by using this novel approach.