Do people prefer RF transistors for RF IC circuits?

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CarolBrusteredm
Level 1
Level 1
First reply posted First question asked Welcome!

Hi

In many of the foundry libraries there are options such as “nmos_rf” in addition to standard “nmos” and their layouts are pre-layed out with a guard ring around them.

This makes them a very bad choice when some kind of matching is required in Gilbert mixer or LC VCO as the transistor pairs cannot be interdigitized. Also I will eventually know every parasitic after I layout my circuit and run a parasitic extraction simulation.

So, my question is do you use rf_transistors in a given process and where is the advantage?

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George_T
Moderator
Moderator
Moderator
50 likes received First question asked 250 replies posted

Hi @CarolBrusteredm ,

Please go through the application notes in the RF Transistor product page for understanding the use cases.

As you already mentioned using RF transistors gives more flexibility to the circuit designer.

Best Regards

George

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George_T
Moderator
Moderator
Moderator
50 likes received First question asked 250 replies posted

Hi @CarolBrusteredm ,

Please go through the application notes in the RF Transistor product page for understanding the use cases.

As you already mentioned using RF transistors gives more flexibility to the circuit designer.

Best Regards

George

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GSpace
Employee
Employee
First like received First reply posted Welcome!

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