60 GHz On-Wafer Noise Parameter Measurements

Using Cold-Source Method

Manu Lahdes, Markku Sipila, Jussi Tuovinen

MilliLab, VTT Information technology, P.O.Box 1202
FIN-02044 VTT, Finland
tel: +358 9 4565923 fax: +358 9 4567013
e-mail: manu.lahdes@vtt.fi

Abstract
Noise parameter measurement set-up for 60 GHz is described. The designed and built set-up is based on
the cold-source method. Both S-and noise parameters are measured with the set-up. Measurement results
of the an InP HEMT noise parameters at 58-62 GHz are shown, as well as accuracy of the results is
discussed.

Introduction
Both noise and S-parameters are needed for optimum amplifier design. Usually noise parameters at mm-
wave frequencies are not given by the transistor manufacturer or they are extrapolated from lower
frequencies. To validate the extrapolation or the noise model used in design, direct noise parameter
measurements are necessary. This paper presents a measurement system which allows simultaneous on-
wafer noise and scattering parameter measurements at the 60 GHz range. S-parameter measurement
frequency range is 50-75 GHz and noise parameter measurement range is 58-62 GHz. The dependence of
the noise figure of linear two-port on source admittance is given by

F = Fmi,+ R,
((Gs-Gopf)2+(~s-~opf)
2
}
where

Fmin = minimum noise figure of the device

Gopt +jBopt = source admittance for minimum noise figure
Rn = noise resistance
G s +jBs = source admittance.

The noise figure can be also calculated using reflection coefficients instead of admittance

where

rapt = source reflection coefficient for minimum noise figure

Ts = source reflection coefficient

146
Zo = characteristic impedance

In a direct noise parameter measurement different source impedancies are presented to the device under
test (DUT) and corresponding noise figures are measured. There are four unknown noise parameters
Fmin, Rn, Gopt, and Bopt so a minimum of four measurements are required. However, in order to
minimize the effects of the measurement errors, additional measurements are done and curve fitting is
applied. Cold-source measurement method [11 is used to measure the noise parameters of the DUT. The
technique presented in [2] has been improved. New technique [3] corrects effects of reflection coefficient
difference of the noise source between on and off states. A fbrther improvement takes into account losses
of the passive network between the DUT and the receiver [3]. Only a simple 1-port tuner is needed in this
method. Due to losses between the DUT and the tuner, the highest DUT source reflection coefficient
magnitude is about 0.7.

Measurement set-up
Main components of the noise parameter measurement set-up are presented in Figure 1. The whole
set-up is controlled by a PC which is connected to measurement instrumentation via GP-IB bus. The data
acquisition and necessary calculations are done by software written in-house. An automatic vector
network analyzer (VNA) is used for system characterization and S-parameter measurements of the DUT.
A schematic of the set-up is shown in Figure 2.

-
/I
VNA

Probe station

Fig.I: Noise parameter measurement system.

147
 t

Tuna Switch 1 Probes Sw$ch 2

D
p w rc

Noise source
Fig.2: The test set-up

By including two waveguide switches both noise- and S-parameters measurements and the receiver
calibration can be done without breaking any connections. This means that the receiver can be calibrated
any time during long measurement sessions to reduce the effects of drifting. Also an uncalibrated 1-port
tuner can be used.

The receiver is shown in Figure 3. The first IF is selected so, that the image frequency is lower than
the cut-off frequency of the WR- 15 waveguide enabling SSB noise measurements. The LNA is a 6-stage
PHEMT amplifier designed at VTT [4]. A frequency synthesizer is used for clean LO signal with easy
frequency control. Due to the low output power level of the synthesizer a biasable mixer is used. The
second stage of the receiver is a commercial satellite down converter. A noise figure meter is used for the
noise power detection. It has a noise bandwidth of 5 MHz. Additional instruments are power sources,
which provide the correct bias for the receiver components and the DUT

G = 18dB
satellite converter

Noise figure
meter
W
f,,=58-62,5GHz
t= 12.5 GHz

Fig.3: The receiver

System characterization
Before the actual noise measurement are carried out, the test system must be fully characterized.
Characterization includes measurements of passive networks between reference planes A-B, C-E, D-E,
and the reflection coefficients of the receiver and noise-source (both hot and cold states). Passive
networks A-B and C-E cannot be measured directly with the VNA since they are non-insertable. To
characterize these the VNA is first calibrated to reference planes A and E, shown in Figure 4, and it is
connected to the tuner and the receiver ports of the switches. Then an on-wafer 2-port LRM calibration is
conducted to the reference planes B and C. The two sets of error coefficients produced by these
calibrations are called from the VNA to the controlling PC and the SI1, S12S21 and S22 of the passive
networks are calculated. The passive network D-E and the reflection coefficients can be measured
conventionally with the VNA. The VNA is connected to the measurement system as shown in Figure 2
and an 1-port calibration is conducted to reference plane A via switch 1. After the calibration the tuner is
connected to port 1 of the switch 1.

148
 A B C E

Switch 1 Probes Switch 2

Fig.4: Configuration for characterization of non-insertable networks.

Calibration of the receiver

The receiver is calibrated in two steps. The gain-bandwidth constant kBG is measured by connecting
the noise source to the receiver via switch 2. Noise power is measured with the source on and off at all
the measurement frequencies.

where P b and PCm are the measured hot and cold noise powers respectively, TH is the noise
temperature of the hot source, Ta is the ambient temperature, GaH is the available gain of the passive
network between reference planes D-E when the noise source is on, and MH and MC are corresponding
mismatch factors of on and off states. The available gain GaH and the mismatch factors are used to
calculate the effective noise temperatures at the receiver port. The second step is the determination of the
receiver noise figure. The receiver has an isolator in the input port, so the noise figure of the receiver is
independent of the source impedance. The receiver noise figure can be calculated from [SI the kBG
measurements,

where To is standard temperature of 290 K and Y is

If an isolator is not included, the receiver noise figure is dependent of source impedance and receiver
noise parameters must be determined as presented in [2].

Noise measurements
After the system characterization and the receiver calibration the set-up is set for noise measurements.
The configuration is presented in Figure 2. The DUT is placed into the probe station and set to the
operating point of interest. The VNA is switched to the DUT and the 2-port S-parameters are measured.
Noise figure measurements are done in two steps. First, the VNA is connected to tuner via switch 1,tuner
is set and its reflection coefficient is measured. Then the tuner is switched to the DUT and noise power is

149
measured as a function of the frequency. The procedure is repeated for all the selected source impedance
points. The noise figure of the entire system is given by

where Pi is the measured noise power, Ti is the source reflection coefficient of the DUT, Sij are the S-
parameters of the DUT, s i j o u T are the S-parameters of the output network C-E and I-2 is the output
reflection coefficient of the DUT. The Eq.(7) is derived in Appendix. The actual source reflection
coefficient Ti seen by the DUT calculated from the measured reflection coefficient at the tuner reference
plane A and the S-parameter data of A-B network acquired during the system characterization. The noise
figure of the DUT is calculated using the Friis formula [6] as follows,

where Frcv in the noise figure of the receiver, GaDUT is the available gain of the DUT, GaOUT is the
available gain of the output network C-E. As a result we get the noise behavior of the DUT as a function
of source impedance. The noise parameters are extracted using the least-squares fitting method [7] for all
the measurement frequencies.

Measurement results
The results of an InP HEMT are shown in Figures 5 through 8. The HEMT was set to operating point
Vds = 1.5 V and Ids = 9 mA. The associated gain of the HEMT is presented in Figure 5 . Three
measurements are presented, the same chip was tested with. three different source impedance
constellations. The number of source impedance points used was 5 , 7, and 9. Increasing the number of
points did not affect the results. The points were set symmetrically around the center of the Smith chart
[SI. No ill-conditioning described in [9] was detected during the calculations. The Ti constellation of the
second (7 points) measurement at 60 GHz is shown in Figure 9. The results indicate a good repeatability.
To check the consistency of the measurement data and the least-squares fitting method, noise figure was
plotted as a function of

where Ys is the source admittance, Gs is the source conductance and Yopt is the calculated optimum
source admittance. The plot presents fitting at three different frequencies (58, 60 and 62 GHz) and is
presented in Figure 10. The plot shows a good fit with small data scattering.

150
 a _ ....... .....................
~ :. .......................................................................

E
,. .....i .....................
: ..................... ...........................................
; j .....

s
.- _
a ...... 8- .... ................
&, ............................ .1..................... i.................... i..........................
; ...
j
.............................. ,........................................... .i..................... ......
0 0.1 .................................................... ;.................... :..................... :......-
0
.- OJ ........ ;..................... :..................... :..................... :..................... :......-

3 :............................ ;...........................................
UI
OA i ..................... i ...... 1
____._
....._
- .
&, ........ .......................................................................................
~ :......-

0
U
,
ID M (1 U
-- U a 10 a1 U

Freq (GHr) Freq (GHz)

Fig.5: Measured minimum noise figure Fmin and Fig. 7 Measured magnitude of rapt.
available gain.

10

I
A
II) _ ....... ; ..................... ; ..................... ; ..................... ;

-
E
5
6
egtm
u
a ........
.
...... .....................
~

' .....................
:
:
;...........................................

i ..................... ; .....................
:.....................

:.....................
:.

:......-
10 p' ........ :...................... j ..................... ......................
j :..................... :
.................................... ..,..; ..................... ;......_
..................... ; ..................... ;..................... ;......_
. .
0 0 ,

Fig.6: Measured noise resistance Rn. Fig.8: Measured phase of rapt.

6 _ ........................................................... *.:
< K..'.
.. /' .
,..' / ' A ___-
5 .................................................... ":': ........ &<..../::............._

1
IL

Fig.9: Ti constellation at 60 GHz of

the second measurement (7 points). 0.m OM 0.01 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.15 0.18 O.M 0.22

IY. - Y J L
Fig. 10: Scattering of the measurement data from the best fit
curve.

151
 Accuracy considerations
There are about 40 different measured variables that affect the final noise parameter values. These
include the magnitudes and the phases of the S-parameters and reflection coefficients, power
measurements, and ENR-calibration of the noise source. To test measurement accuracy Monte-Carlo
analysis was carried out. In the analysis each variable was randomly changed around the measured value
within predetermined boundaries, while monitoring changes in the noise parameters. The error
boundaries are determined so that both random and systematic errors are included giving a good estimate
of the total uncertainty. When a large number of runs (>1000) is conducted, the resulting noise parameter
sets can be statistically studied. An other method is to study results as a function of frequency. The actual
noise parameters can be assumed to behave smoothly, and a linear curve fit is plotted with 95.5 %
confidence boundaries, in Figures 5 trough 8. The results of the Monte-Carlo analysis and linear curve
fitting at 60 GHz is presented in Table 1. In this table 20 or 95.5 % confidence of each noise parameter is
shown. The scattering of Fmin and rapt in the Monte-Carlo analysis are presented in Figures 1 1 and 12.

Fmin (dB) Rn (ohm) lroptl argu-opt) (deg)

Measured value 3.9 15.4 0.29 147.5

(Mean)
Monte-Carlo f 0.50 f 3.1 f 0.04 f 6.7
20 (95.5%)
Linear curve fit f 0.56 f 2.5 f 0.05 f 5.3
20 (95.5%)

Fmin

Fig 11: Monte-Carlo analysis results; scattering Fig 12: Monte-Carlo analysis results;
of the Fmin. scattering of the rapt.

Conclusions
An on-wafer noise parameter measurement system has been designed and built. The cold-source
method was used to measure the noise parameters of an InP HEMT. Previously presented method has
been improved by including the effects of reflection coefficient difference between noise source cold and
hot states, and the losses of the output network. By relocating the switch 1, a simple uncalibrated 1-port
tuner can be used. The measurement results between 58-62 GHz are presented.

152
 References

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Instrumentation and measurement, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 181-183, 1973.

[2] Meierer R., Tsironis C.: ”An on-wafer noise parameter measurement technique with automatic
receiver calibration”, Microwave Journal, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 22-37, 1995.

[3] Lahdes M., :Measuring noise parameters at 60 GHz, Master’s Thesis, HUT Radio Laboratory Espoo,
Finland 1996, (in Finnish).

[4] Lunden O.P.,Sipila M., Jenu M.: ”60 GHz LNAs using commercially available PM HEMTs”,
Microwave Journal, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 80-88, 1995.

[5] Strid E.: ”Noise measurements for low-noise GaAs FET amplifiers”, Microwave System News, vol.
10, pp. 62-70, 1981.

[6] Friis H. T. :”Noise figures of radio receivers”, Proceedings of the IRE, vol. 32, no. 7, pp. 419-422,
1944.

[7] Lane R. Q.:”The determination of device noise parameters”, Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 57, no. 8,
pp. 1461-1462,1969.

[8] Davidson A. C., Leake B. W., Strid E.: ”Accuracy improvements in microwave noise parameter
measurement”, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 37, no. 12, pp. 1973-1977,
1989.

[9] Sannino M.: ”On the determination of device noise and gain parameters”, Proceedings of the IEEE,
vol. 67, no. 9, pp. 1364-1366, 1979.

153
 Appendix: Derivation of Eq.7

The noise temperature Tout at the output port of cascaded DUT and the passive output network C-E
when the input is terminated with an 1-port at ambient temperature is given by

where Ta is the ambient temperature, Te is the effective input noise temperature, GaDUT is the available
gain of the DUT, and GaOUT is the available gain of the output network. See Figure A1 . The noise power
Pi detected by the receiver is

where kBG is the gain bandwidth constant of the receiver. The effective input noise temperature is solved
for

where Ti is the source reflection coefficient of the DUT, Sy are the S-parameters of the DUT, S i j o u T are
the S-parameters of the output network C-E and I'2 is the output reflection coefficient of the DUT. The
corresponding noise figure is

B C E

Fig. A1: The network used for the derivation.

154