Tradeoffs Between RF Performance and SET Robustness in Low-Noise Amplifiers in a Complementary SiGe BiCMOS Platform

Low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) are necessary components for any communications system. Single-event transients (SETs) induced by energetic particles in space can corrupt the data in an RF receiver. Using p-n-p silicon-germanium (SiGe) heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs), instead of their more common n-p-n counterparts, has been shown to be an effective mitigation technique in digital, analog, and RF circuits. Since p-n-p SiGe HBTs tend to have lower performance than n-p-n SiGe HBTs, in this article, the tradeoffs between performance and SET robustness have been evaluated through the use of simulations. Two LNAs were designed using an algorithmic design technique: one using only n-p-n SiGe HBTs, and the other using only p-n-p devices. The n-p-n LNA had higher peak gain and lower noise figure at the center frequency of 5 GHz when compared to the p-n-p LNA, by 3.2 and 0.4 dB, respectively. However, the n-p-n LNA also produced transients with amplitudes larger than the p-n-p LNA across all simulated linear energy transfers. Although the p-n-p LNA has lower overall performance, it is also more robust to SETs. Thus, the choice between using n-p-n and p-n-p SiGe HBTs for an RF design will depend on application requirements.