Efficient TCAD Temperature-dependent Large-Signal Simulation of a FinFET Power Amplifier

We show a complete temperature-dependent analysis of a low power FinFET-based class A amplifier for small-cell applications based on an efficient approach to the temperature-dependent physics-based analysis of electron devices in Large Signal (LS) nonlinear conditions. The method extends the Green’s Function (GF) approach, already developed for the device LS noise and technological sensitivity, to calculate the LS device response to the temperature variation from a nominal, “cold” condition with a negligible numerical overhead with respect to the other GF-based analyses. T-dependent TCAD simulations are applied to assess the robustness of the FinFET-based power amplifier against device heating and load variations. Temperature variations dominate over load sensitivity, showing more than 1 dB output power loss and a PAE reduction from 28% to 23%. The proposed approach represents a first step towards the development of physically sound, temperature dependent, LS circuit models of nonlinear stages.