RF Induced Nonlinear Effects in High-Speed Electronics

Abstract

Previous experiments and research have indicated rectification of modulated electromagnetic interference can cause upset effects in digital electronics. Although RF rectification has been observed in discrete components, only speculation of the most sensitive mechanisms causing RF rectification has been proposed. Through theoretical analysis, experiments, and simulations, the p-n junctions in ESD protection circuits were determined to be susceptible to rectifying pulse modulated RF signals. Threshold experiments on several logic families of CMOS inverters provided indications to susceptibilities of electronics based on their input ESD protection topology.

Parasitic elements have also been determined to cause additional effects including bias shifts, state changes, RF gain, and circuit resonances. DC and high frequency parameter extraction techniques were used to build diode and generic inverter models including package parasitics in PSPICE. Models were designed which gave good agreement to measured rectification drive curves, input impedance resonances, output voltage bias shifts, and induced spurious oscillations.