The effect of temperature on performance of a RF CMOS power amplifer and bond wires

In this work, low and high temperature environmental tests were conducted on a switching mode RF CMOS power amplifier according to the MIL-STD-810G standard. The efficiency of the power amplifier was increased by 5% at -32 °C while it was decreased by 4% at 63 °C. In order to determine the influence of interconnects on the performance, the effect of temperature on single bond wires of different lengths was investigated. In results, the S₂₁ parameter (dB) of the bond wires showed a linear and inverse relationship with varying temperature. Compared with the S₂₁ parameter obtained at the standard ambient condition, it was varied by ±7.5 % in the temperature range from -60 °C to 120 °C, which cannot be neglected. Furthermore, it is shown that the electrical loss of interconnects increases with rising temperature because of the thermal expansion and increase in the resistivity.