Effect of gate-oxide breakdown on RF 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 gate-oxide breakdown on the performance of a low-noise amplifier is studied using the equivalent circuit model. Depending on which device and how many fingers break down, the circuit continues to work, despite the fact that the performance of S-parameters and noise figure degrades significantly.