Analysis of High-Frequency Measurement of Transistors Along With Electromagnetic and SPICE Cosimulation

Terahertz (THz) silicon-based electronics is undergoing rapid developments. In order to keep this momentum high, an accurate and optimized on-wafer characterization procedure needs to be developed. While evaluating passive elements, the measured s-parameter data can be verified by a direct use of EM simulation tools. However, this verification requires to precisely introduce part of the measurement environment such as the probes, pads, and access lines to accurately predict the impact of calibration and layout for on-wafer measurements. Unfortunately, this procedure is limited to passive elements. Hence, in this work, we propose a new procedure to emulate the measurement of active devices using an electromagnetic SPICE cosimulation. By this method, one can clearly highlight that a measurement artifact that was observed for the transistor measurement can be reproduced. One of the most representative examples of measurement artifact involves the measurement and estimation of f
_MAX
which is not constant over all frequency bands. Also, the measurement is difficult to perform above 40 GHz. This typical problem is now undoubtedly attributed to the probe-to-substrate coupling and probe-to-probe coupling which are strongly dependent on the probe geometry. Finally, this cosimulation procedure evidently underlines the need for an optimized deembedding procedure above 200 GHz.