International Journal of Microwave and Wireless Technologies cambridge.org/mrf Research Paper Cite this article: Lahbib I et al (2018). Reliability analysis of BiCMOS SiGe:C technology under aggressive conditions for emerging RF and mm-wave applications: proposal of reliability-aware circuit design methodology. International Journal of Microwave and Wireless Technologies 10, 690–699. https://doi.org/10.1017/ S1759078718000624 Received: 15 September 2017 Revised: 16 March 2018 Accepted: 16 March 2018 Key words: BiCMOS SiGe:C; displacement damage; electrical DC and RF stress; mission profiles; protons Author for correspondence: Insaf Lahbib, E-mail: insaf.lahbib@gmail.com © Cambridge University Press and the European Microwave Association 2018 Reliability analysis of BiCMOS SiGe:C technology under aggressive conditions for emerging RF and mm-wave applications: proposal of reliability-aware circuit design methodology Insaf Lahbib 1 , Sidina Wane 1,2 , Aziz Doukkali 1 , Dominique Lesénéchal 1 , Thanh Vinh Dinh 1 , Laurent Leyssenne 1 , Rosine Coq Germanicus 1 , Françoise Bezerra 3 , Guy Rolland 3 , Cristian Andrei 2 , Guy Imbert 2 , Patrick Martin 1 , Philippe Descamps 1 , Guillaume Boguszewski 4 and Damienne Bajon 5 1 Normandie Université ENSICAEN/CRISMAT/UMR, 6508 Caen cedex 04, Calvados, France; 2 NXP-Semiconductors, France; 3 CNES, Toulouse, France; 4 CYleone, Business Innovation Center, Montpellier, France and 5 ISAE-SUPAERO, Université de Toulouse, France Abstract In this contribution, the impact of extreme environmental conditions in terms of energy-level radiation of protons on silicon–germanium (SiGe)-integrated circuits is experimentally stud- ied. Canonical representative structures including linear (passive interconnects/antennas) and non-linear (low-noise amplifiers) are used as carriers for assessing the impact of aggressive stress conditions on their performances. Perspectives for holistic modeling and characteriza- tion approaches accounting for various interaction mechanisms (substrate resistivity varia- tions, couplings/interferences, drift in DC and radio frequency (RF) characteristics) for active samples are down to allow for optimal solutions in pushing SiGe technologies toward applications with harsh and radiation-intense environments (e.g. space, nuclear, military). Specific design prototypes are built for assessing mission-critical profiles for emerging RF and mm-wave applications. Introduction In recent years, silicon–germanium (SiGe) technology proved high performances for compo- nents with high monolithic integration [1,2], increased speed with low-power consumption. Continuous progress in this technology renders possible large spectrum of applications from radio frequency (RF), microwave to THz [3], which used to be implemented using III -V compound semiconductors (e.g. GaAs-based technologies) (Fig. 1). In space and defense applications, in addition to standard trade-offs between application driving parameters such as noise, power, linearity, thermal dissipation, environment condi- tions (e.g. irradiation, harsh thermal variations) put strong constraints on system-level perfor- mances in terms of robustness and variability. Thus, analysis, characterization, and predictive [4] modeling of environmental effects on constitutive system-level components/function blocks is of paramount importance. In the prior art, investigated typical devices encompass both active (MOS and heterojunc- tion bipolar transistors, diodes) and passive samples (transmission lines, interconnects) [5, 6]. When heavy charged particles such as protons traverse a structure with medium energy (from 20 MeV to several hundreds of MeV), particles induce both ionization and atomic displace- ment (non-ionizing) effects. Then along the path of the incident proton in the material, both ionizing and non-ionizing energy loss modify the oxide/silicon interface (total ionizing dose, TID effect), the junctions, and the silicon bulk properties as displacement damage dose (DDD) effects. Experimental results and simulations reported in the literature have demonstrated that SiGe devices are tolerant to permanent degradation induced by radiation for both TID for several MRad and DDD effects [7–10]. Nevertheless, most of previously pub- lished research studies focused on specific device-oriented modeling and characterization, where interactions and couplings between neighboring elements (components, function blocks, subsystems) are generally not addressed. Furthermore, very limited attention is devoted to the effects of extreme environmental conditions on electromagnetically radiating structures such as antennas, which will enable important functionalities such as MIMO, beamforming, and beamsteering [7]. In this contribution, based on representative structures for linear (pas- sive interconnects), non-linear (low-noise amplifier (LNA)), and electromagnetically radiating https://doi.org/10.1017/S1759078718000624 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 54.81.183.165, on 05 Dec 2021 at 13:42:55, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.