Noise characteristics of transistors fabricated in an advanced silicon bipolar technology

The RF noise of transistors fabricated in an advanced silicon bipolar technology is investigated. The influence of the lateral scaling on the noise figure is studied experimentally and compared with the predictions of conventional noise modeling. Reasonable agreement is found without any fitting of model parameters to the measured noise characteristics. The potential of the investigated technology for low-noise applications is demonstrated by noise figures below 1 dB for frequencies up to 2 GHz and below 2 dB up to 7 GHz.