Challenges of RF and mixed signal design under process variability

Abstract

Summary form only given. The continuous device shrinking, towards nano-scaled technology nodes, has been resulted in yield and reliability challenges due to technology process variations for active FEOL devices and passives in the BEOL. These effects have been modelled extensively in terms of global and local variations. However, a lot of challenges remain to capture the medium range mismatch of these devices. This presentation will give some examples of RF and mixed signal circuits such as LNAs, PAs and VCOs where their performance is degraded due to this additional variability.