A comparative study of RF noise characteristics of different submicron SOI MOSFET structures on SIMOX technology

The silicon-on-insulator (SOI) CMOS technology has been attractive for radio frequency (RF) integrated circuits due to its advantages of reduced parasitic capacitance, minimal substrate loss and noise coupling, and monolithic integration of high-Q passive components. However, there are various choices of SOI device structures such as fully depleted (FD), partially depleted (PD) and dynamic threshold (DT) MOSFET's. While the relative merits of the SOI devices in terms of current driving capability, small-signal gain and maximum cut-off frequencies have been extensively studied, the direct comparisons of their noise performance at gigahertz frequencies are very few in the literature. In order to fill the gap, we have performed extensive RF noise characterizations of the common SOI devices together with the effects of scaling, body contact scheme, and operation conditions.