Low-Temperature Performance of Nanoscale MOSFET for Deep-Space RF Applications

RF characteristics of a nanoscale MOSFET are measured and analyzed at temperatures ranging from 4.2 to 300 K for deep-space RF applications. This device shows a 197-GHz current gain cutoff frequency (f_T) and a 162-GHz maximum oscillation frequency (f_max) when operating at liquid-helium temperature, which represent a 60% and 80% improvement compared to room temperature performances, respectively, f_T continually improves as the temperature decreases to near-liquid-helium temperature due to the decrease of gate capacitance (C_gg). f_max decreases as the temperature is lowered below 25 K due to the increase of gate resistance (R_g).