Mostafa Emam Tuesday 14 November

Mostafa Emam mostafa.emam@incize.com Tuesday 14 November 2017 http://www.linkedin.com/company/incize

Since 2014 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium MEASUREMENT, CHARACTERIZATION & MODELING SERVICES FOR SI & III-V TECHNOLOGIES & RADIATION HARDENED ICS Exclusive License 10 years B a c k g r o u n d

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Semiconductor Activi t y Te c h n o l o g y E n a b l e m e n t Tr a i n i n g

RF-SOI technology characterization

Source: Peter A. Rabbeni, Director RF Product Marketing and Business Development, GLOBALFOUNDRIES SOI Consortium RF SOI Workshop Shanghai, September 2015

1 E B = 1 0 18 b y t e s = 1 b i l l i o n g i g a b y t e s 7 B i l l i o n p e o p l e ( E a r t h s p o p u l a t i o n ) E a c h d o w n l o a d i n g 1 g i g a b y t e / m o n t h i n 2 0 1 6!!! Source: Peter A. Rabbeni, Director RF Product Marketing and Business Development, GLOBALFOUNDRIES SOI Consortium RF SOI Workshop Shanghai, September 2015

Source: Peter A. Rabbeni, Director RF Product Marketing and Business Development, GLOBALFOUNDRIES SOI Consortium RF SOI Workshop Shanghai, September 2015

SILICON ON INSULATOR

Front End Module (FEM) RECEPTION AND TRANSMISSION CHAINS IN A FRONT-END MODULE The RF Switch market is dominated by SOI and will remain so. Bulk-CMOS technology - currently the only competition to SOI - could disappear, unless it is monolithically integrated with other components into PAMs. Rx RF MEMS technology will take off in 2019 and will slowly grow in the high-end antenna switch market. Tx C o u r t e s y : 2017 w

Front End Module 4G 3G 2G C o u r t e s y : E r i c D e s b o n n e t s, S o i t e c

100% of smartphones contain RF SOI RF-SOI enables Full Front End module integration RF Switches Antenna Tuners Diplexers Power Amplifiers 3G LTE Filters C o u r t e s y : E r i c D e s b o n n e t s, S o i t e c

MOS technology - tly the only market is tition to SOI - could ear, unless it is ithically SOI integrated and will ther components into The RF Switch dominated by remain so. MEMS technology ke off in 2019 and will grow in the high-end a switch market. Bulk-CMOS technology - currently the only competition to SOI - could disappear, unless it is monolithically integrated with other components into PAMs. RF MEMS technology will take off in 2019 and will slowly grow in the high-end antenna switch market. C o u r t e s y : 2017 w

Cellular/PCS Handset & WLAN Requirements on Primary Switch RF switches either connect or isolate RF signals Very demanding specifications Cellular IP2/3 specifications are out of band two tones or known as blocker test * FET based switches preferred having no physical moving parts for better reliability (billions of operations) and very low power supply requirements (<1mW) Cellular/PCS Frequency Coverage P0.1dB VSWR 700MHz-1GHz GSM/EDGE dictates, GSM/EDGE/3G/4G dictates, 3G/4G dictates 35dBm 6:1 (~30Vpk or ~500mArms) Insertion Loss Isolation RL Harmonics IIP2* IIP3* Ts <0.3dB 40dB >20dB <-75dBc 115dBm >83dBm** <5µs >1GHz-2.1GHz 33dBm 6:1 <0.4dB 35dB >20dB <-75dBc 115dBm >83dBm** <5µs >2.1GHz-3.5GHz (4G) 30dBm 6:1 <1dB 30dB >20dB No Ref 115dBm 68dBm <5µs WLAN ~ SPDT Frequency Coverage P0.1dB VSWR Insertion Loss Isolation RL Harmonics IIP2 IIP3 Ts 2.5GHz 26dBm 6:1 (10.8Vpk) <0.5dB 30dB >20dB <-70dBc No Ref 58dBm <80ns 5.5GHz 26dBm 6:1 (10.8Vpk) <0.5dB 20dB >20dB <-70dBc No Ref 50dBm <80ns Higher frequency bands and data-rate protocols needing larger bandwidths require high resistive SOI for broadband operation Typical ESD requirement is 2kV HBM Positive supply and control logic: require negative charge pump and level shifters * T. Ranta, et. al., Antenna Switch Linearity Requirements for GSM/WCDMA Mobile Phone Front-Ends, 2005 IEEE ECWT, Oct. 2005 **J.-E. Mueller, et. al., Requirements for reconfigurable 4G front-ends, in Microwave Symposium Digest (IMS), 2013 IEEE MTT-S International, Seattle, WA, USA, 2013 **J.P. Raskin, SOI technology pushes the limits of CMOS for RF applications, 2016 IEEE SiRF, Jan. 2016 Other specifications taken from products sheets taken in the public domain. Source: Randy Wolf, GLOBALFOUNDRIES Designing Next-Gen Cellular and Wi-Fi Switches Using RF SOI Technology 8

SOI Substrates Characterization

High Resistivity SOI substrats: how high should we go? signal Si substrate Conductor losses (α cond ) Substrate losses (α sub ) STD SOI: 20 Ω.cm high losses >3 k HR SOI of > 10 kω.cm would correspond 29to a lossless Si substrate

HR SOI Substrates Parasitic Surface Conduction [C. Roda Neve et al., TED 12] HR-SOI suffers from Parasitic Surface Conduction (PSC) effect at the SiO 2 /Si interface. Parasitic Surface Conduction (PSC) SiO 2 HR-Si Si Mobile & Interface trapped charges Highly conductive layer Fixed charges Accumulation layer n-type 10 kω.cm 30 + PSC 200 Ω.cm

HR SOI Substrates How to overcome PSC? Trap Rich layer freezes the highly conductive layer at BOX Handle interface Mono-crystal Top Silicon Mobile & Interface trapped charges Fixed charges SiO 2 (BOX) SiO 2 (BOX) Highly conductive layer Trap rich layer Accumulation layer Trap rich layer n-type High Resistivity SI Base

SOI Substrates Characterization Techniques

Substrates Characterization S m a l l - s i g n a l L a r g e - s i g n a l N o i s e S-Parameters Harmonic Distortion Digital Noise Cross Talk Intermodulation Distortion

Substrates RF Non-Destructive Characterization S m a l l - s i g n a l L a r g e - s i g n a l N o i s e S-Parameters Cross Talk Destructive. Difficult to get detailed wafer mapping. Harmonic Digital Noise Distortion Spreading Resistance Profiling (SRP) Intermodulation Does Distortion not Difficult to relate to 34 capture interface conduction. final processed RF and Non-linear wafer behavior. Expensive

Substrates I n n o v a t i v e C h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n Te c h n i q u e s Large-Signal Small-Signal Cross-Talk Digital Noise CPW 2146 µm-long. 900 MHz

Substrates I n n o v a t i v e C h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n Te c h n i q u e s Large-Signal Small-Signal Cross-Talk Digital Noise CPW 2146 µm-long. 900 MHz @ P in = 15 dbm

Intermodulation Distortion

Substrates I n n o v a t i v e C h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n Te c h n i q u Large-Signal e s Small-Signal Cross-Talk Digital Noise IMD3 2ω 1 ω 2 ω 1 ω 2 2ω 2 ω 1 ω 2 + ω 1 ω

Substrates I n n o v a t i v e C h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n Te c h n i q u Large-Signal e s Small-Signal Cross-Talk Digital Noise

Substrates I n n o v a t i v e C h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n Te c h n i q u e s Large-Signal Small-Signal Cross-Talk Digital Noise 900 MHz CPW 2146 µm-long. Band 8 f 1 = 900 MHz, f 2 = 955 MHz f im3 = 845 MHz

[db/mm] ρ eff [Ω-cm] Substrates I n n o v a t i v e C h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n Te c h n i q u e s [db/mm] 2 1.5 1 Large-Signal Small-Signal Cross-Talk Digital Noise std-si HR-Si trap-rich HR-Si Quartz 10 5 10 4 10 3 3 k -cm std-si HR-Si trap-rich HR-Si Quartz 0.5 10 2 0 [Roda Neve et al., EUMIC 08] 5 10 15 20 25 Freq. [GHz] std-si HR-Si Quartz trap-rich HR-Si 10 1 ρ nom [Ω-cm] 10 > 5 k - > 5 k 5 10 15 20 25 Freq. [GHz] ρ eff [Ω-cm] Q f ~ 3x10 11 33 64 > 5 k > 5 k

Substrates I n n o v a t i v e C h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n Te c h n i q u e s d PAD PAD Large-Signal Small-Signal Cross-Talk Digital Noise d= 50 µm CROSSTALK SiO 2 Si -20-40 HR-SOI TR-SOI SOS Low Frequency -60 S21 [db] -80-100 Test structure -120-140 150 x 50 µm d = 50µm -160 1k 10 k 100k 1 M 10M 100 M42 1 G 10G [K. Ben Ali et al., TED 11] Frequency [Hz]

Substrates I n n o v a t i v e C h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n Te c h n i q u Large-Signal e s Small-Signal Cross-Talk Digital Noise d= 50 µm SiO 2 Trap-rich layer CROSSTALK HR-Si -20-40 HR-SOI TR-SOI SOS Low Frequency -60 S21 [db] -80-100 -35 db 20 db/dec Test structure -120-140 150 x 50 µm d = 50µm -160 1k 10 k 100k 1 M 10M 100 M 1 G 10G [K. Ben Ali et al., TED 11] Frequency [Hz]

Take Away

-20-40 HR-SOI TR-SOI SOS d= 50 µm Low Frequency -60 S21 [db] -80-100 -120-140 RF is a powerful tool -160 1k 10 k 100k 1 M 10M 100 M 1 G 10G Frequency [Hz]