Investigating a Thermal Breakdown Model and Experiments on a Silicon-Based Low-Noise Amplifier Under High-Power Microwave Pulses

This study investigated a thermal breakdown model for semiconductor devices under the injection of high-power microwave (HPM) pulses. A general equation was derived to calculate the power to failure, which depended on the pulse width and its duty cycle. The equation was able to calculate the threshold power given the parameters of a certain semiconductor device. To validate the model, silicon-based low-noise amplifiers were measured to obtain their threshold power under different pulse widths and duty cycles in the HPM measurement system. The calculated and measured power-to-failure results were compared with some correlations. This analysis is useful for further discussion on semiconductor protection under the HPM pulses.