Advanced thin-film silicon-on-sapphire technology: microwavecircuit applications |
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Authors: | Johnson RA de la Houssaye PR Chang CE Pin-Fan Chen Wood ME Garcia GA Lagnado I Asbeck PM |
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Affiliation: | Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., California Univ., San Diego, La Jolla, CA; |
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Abstract: | This paper reviews the prospects of thin-film silicon-on-sapphire (TFSOS) CMOS technology in microwave applications in the 1-5 GHz regime and beyond and presents the first demonstration of microwave integrated circuits based on this technology, MOSFET's optimized for microwave use, with 0.5-μm optically defined gate lengths and a T-gate structure, have ft values of 25 GHz (14 GHz) and fmax values of 66 GHz (41 GHz) for n-channel (p-channel) devices and have noise figure values below 1 db at 2 GHz, some of the best reported performance characteristics of any silicon-based MOSFET's to date. On-chip spiral inductors exhibit quality factors above ten. Circuit performance compares favorably with that of other CMOS-based technologies and approach performance levels similar to those obtained by silicon bipolar technologies. The results demonstrate the significant potential of this technology for microwave applications |
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