Hot-Carrier Stress Effect on a CMOS 65-nm 60-GHz One-Stage Power Amplifier

The effects of RF hot-carrier stress on the characteristics of 60-GHz power amplifiers (PAs) on a CMOS 65-nm process are investigated, for the first time, in this letter. A reliability study is made on a one-stage PA to validate an aging model and the degradation explanation. A drop of 16% of the gain, 17% of the 1-dB output compression point (
OCP
_{1 dB}
), and 17% of the
P
_sat
are measured at 60 GHz after 50 h of stress under
V
_dd
= 1.65 V with
P
_in
= 0 dBm and
V
_dd
= 1.9 V with
P
_in
= -10 dBm at 60-GHz frequency.