Effect of gate oxide breakdown on RF device and circuit performance

The degradation of S-parameters of 0.16 /spl mu/m NMOS devices due to gate oxide breakdown is examined. An equivalent circuit model for MOSFETs after gate oxide breakdown is proposed. The influence of nMOSFET breakdown on the performance of a low noise amplifier is studied using the equivalent circuit model. Depending on which device and how many fingers breakdown, there is a nonzero probability that the circuit continues to work, in spite of the fact that the performance of S-parameters and noise figure drastically degrades.