Impact of Process Variations and Defects on RF Front-end in Nanoscale CMOS

Abstract

Abstract-The scaling of MOSFET causes various process variations and defects which result in increasing performance loss of nanoscale integrated circuits. Major sources of process variations and defects in nanometer CMOS technology are studied. Then, their impact on MOSFET characteristics and on VCO circuit performances is analyzed. Finally, the paper proposes a novel self-healing circuit structure for VCO, which is able to work robustly against process variations.