Calibrations for Millimeter-Wave Silicon Transistor Characterization

Published

March 1, 2014

Author(s)

Dylan F. Williams, Phillip Corson, Sharma Jahnavi, Krishnaswamy Harish, Wei Tai, George Zacharias, Ricketts David, Watson Paul, Dacquay Eric, Voinigescu Sorin

Abstract

This paper compares on-wafer thru-reflect-line (TRL) and off-wafer short-open-load-thru (SOLT) and line-reflect-reflect-match (LRRM) vector-network-analyzer probe-tip calibrations for amplifier characterization and parasitic-extraction calibrations for transistor characterization on silicon integrated circuits at millimeter-wave frequencies. We show that on-wafer calibrations generally outperform off-wafer and LRRM probe-tip calibrations at millimeter-wave frequencies. However, certain parasitic-extraction algorithms designed specifically to remove contact pads, transmission-lines, and access vias correct for much of the error in off-wafer calibrations.

Citation

IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques

Volume

62

Issue

3

Pub Type

Journals

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DOI Link

Keywords

Calibration, measurement, millimeter wave, scattering parameters, silicon, transistor, vector network analyzer(VNA)

Citation

Williams, D. , Corson, P. , Jahnavi, S. , Harish, K. , Tai, W. , Zacharias, G. , David, R. , Paul, W. , Eric, D. and Sorin, V. (2014), Calibrations for Millimeter-Wave Silicon Transistor Characterization, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, [online], https://doi.org/10.1109/TMTT.2014.2300839 (Accessed October 17, 2025)