Performance vs. Reliability Tradeoffs of Medium Breakdown and High Performance Cascode Amplifier Cells

The purpose of this work is to investigate the performance-reliability tradeoffs of cascode amplifier cells operating under high output voltage swing using both high performance (HP) and medium breakdown (MB) devices in the common base stage. This study combines single-device DC characterization with DC, small-signal, and large-signal RF measurement of cascode amplifier cells, to demonstrate similar performance between MB and HP cascodes. Stress measurements, which combine aggressive device biasing with large output swing, demonstrate improved reliability for MB cascodes under high voltage swing, as well as improved reliability for HP cascodes under high current swing. It is shown that large devices maximize reliability and performance, that MB devices should be chosen for applications utilizing high voltage swing, and HP devices should be chosen for applications with high current swing.