Summary: | This work presents a detailed RF characterization of 28-nm FD-SOI nMOSFETs at cryogenic temperatures down to 4.2 K. Two main RF Figures of Merit (FoMs), i.e., current-gain cutoff frequency (f<sub>t</sub>) and maximum oscillation frequency (f<sub>max</sub>), as well as parasitic elements of the small-signal equivalent circuit, are extracted from the measured S-parameters. An improvement of up to ~130 GHz in f<sub>t</sub> and ~75 GHz in f<sub>max</sub> is observed for the shortest device (25 nm) at low temperature. The behavior of RF FoMs versus temperature is discussed in terms of small-signal equivalent circuit elements, both intrinsic and extrinsic (parasitics). This study suggests 28-nm FD-SOI nMOSFETs as a good candidate for future cryogenic applications down to 4.2 K and clarifies the origin and limitations of the performance.
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