Assessment of the Transient Self-Heating Effect and its Impact on the Performance of Watt-Level RF Power Amplifier in a FinFET Technology

The dynamic behavior of self-heating effect in FinFET devices has a profound impact on the performance of RF circuits. Hence an accurate assessment of such transient thermal response is critical for designing successfully thermal-sensitive RF blocks in FinFET technology. This work shows, for the first time, a physics-based multi-stage approach to evaluate the thermal network of a single RF multi-fin multi-finger FinFET transistor and the power cell comprised of such multiple transistors. This thermal assessment approach, which has been verified by intensive characterization of both on-wafer and in-packaged RF test chips, enables the first Watt-level RF power amplifier design in a baseline FinFET node.