Temperature dependence on RF avalanche breakdown of RF mosfets in the impact ionization region

Abstract

In this article, temperature dependence on radio‐frequency (RF) avalanche effects of metal–oxide–semiconductor field‐effect transistors (MOSFETs) in the impact ionization region is investigated using RF measurements for the first time. Equivalent circuit parameters of MOSFETs including the inductive breakdown network are extracted from low to high temperatures to characterize device performance and its temperature dependency in the breakdown regime. At elevated temperatures, inductive behavior resulting from a RF avalanche mechanism becomes evident due to the pronounced inductive network with increasing temperature. When the RF avalanche mechanism is not considered, a deviation of the extracted channel resistance increases with raising temperature. The effect of inductive breakdown on output voltage standing wave ratio performance when designing an output matching network for the MOSFETs is also analyzed at different temperatures. The presented analysis of temperature dependence on device performance can be beneficial to RF power amplifier design in the breakdown region for high‐altitude applications at different temperatures. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 57:817–820, 2015