Voltage Amplifiers have been used to characterize the low-frequency noise of Heterojunction Bipolar Transistors
(HBTs). They generally feature not only a lower noise floor, but also have less impact on simultaneous (two-port)
measurements than Transimpedance Amplifiers, when moderate to high DC current regimes are considered. However,
when the Device Under Test (DUT) is characterized under these regimes, common concepts such as unilateralism and
frequency-independent small-signal parameters are no longer valid due to the frequency-dependent thermal response of
the DUT (self-heating). It will be shown that depending on the conditions under which the measurements are carried out,
the experimental data may vary for some orders of magnitude, leading to an incorrect characterization if the effect is
disregarded.
Designing oscillator circuits at RF and microwaves requires specific knowledge in extremely varied fields of electronics.
The following items will be the core of the presentation:
- The physical processes leading to low-frequency noise in semi-conductor devices and the nonlinear behavior of the noise sources in large signal operating conditions will be detailed
- Transistor modeling: A special emphasis will be put on the low-frequency noise modeling associated to the nonlinear transistor models.
- Simulations tools: In order to simulate accurately the phase noise in free-running nonlinear oscillator circuits, the frequency domain approach based on the conversion matrices formalism which is related to the harmonic balance formalism will be detailed.
- Design rules for low phase noise operation
Theoretical conditions to be fulfilled by the circuit will be detailed on the basis of the Leeson analysis revisited.
The need of new characterizations and extraction methods of noise sources in actual transistors, for a better prediction of noise performances of nonlinear circuits will be recalled.
We present in this paper a set of coherent tools for noise characterization and physics-based analysis of noise in semiconductor devices. This noise toolbox relies on a low frequency noise measurement setup with special high current capabilities thanks to an accurate and original calibration. It relies also on a simulation tool based on the drift diffusion equations and the linear perturbation theory, associated with the Green's function technique. This physics-based noise simulator has been implemented successfully in the Scilab environment and is specifically dedicated to HBTs. Some results are given and compared to those existing in the literature.
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