Noise-gain tradeoff in RF SiGe HBTs

Author

Guofu Niu ; Cressler, J.D. ; Shiming Zhang ; Joseph, A. ; Harame, D.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Auburn Univ., AL, USA

fYear

2001

fDate

14-14 Sept. 2001

Firstpage

187

Lastpage

191

Abstract

This work examines the trade-off between noise figure and gain in SiGe HBT RF technology. Based on the linear noisy two-port theory, analytical expressions for the minimum noise figure, the optimum source admittance, and the associated gain are derived. For many current RF applications of SiGe HBTs operating at frequencies comparable to or smaller than f/sub T///spl radic//spl beta/, /spl beta/ must be increased through SiGe profile optimization to further reduce noise. This noise improvement, however, also results in a degradation of associated gain, as experimentally observed. The implications of the noise-gain trade-off for RF integrated circuit design are discussed.

Keywords

Ge-Si alloys; electric admittance; heterojunction bipolar transistors; integrated circuit design; microwave bipolar transistors; optimisation; semiconductor device measurement; semiconductor device models; semiconductor device noise; semiconductor materials; two-port networks; RF SiGe HBTs; RF applications; RF integrated circuit design; SiGe; SiGe HBT RF technology; SiGe HBTs; SiGe profile optimization; gain; gain degradation; linear noisy two-port theory; minimum noise figure; noise figure; noise reduction; noise-gain trade-off; optimum source admittance; Admittance; Degradation; Germanium silicon alloys; Heterojunction bipolar transistors; Integrated circuit noise; Integrated circuit synthesis; Noise figure; Noise reduction; Radio frequency; Silicon germanium;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Silicon Monolithic Integrated Circuits in RF Systems, 2001. Digest of Papers. 2001 Topical Meeting on

Conference_Location

Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7129-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SMIC.2001.942363

Filename

942363