The Effect of Temperature Change on the Performance Characteristics of RF PIN Diode Limiters for VHF Applications

Abstract

This work presents the effect of temperature change on the capacitance of GaAs PIN diodes and the resulting change in performance of RF limiters at VHF. Device temperatures were varied between -25 ºC and 100 ºC, with small-signal parameters (including device capacitance) extracted at regular temperature increments and bias voltages from -20 V to +3 Vdc using a multi-bias parameter extraction method. It was found that the junction capacitance of the four PIN diodes under investigation increases with temperature, as expected from carrier lifetime behavior, whereas the forward-biased series resistance decreases with increasing temperature. Devices were subsequently tested in two different limiter topologies through high-power transient measurements. It was found that the combination of increased capacitance and decreased resistance with increasing temperature increases the transient spike leakage and decreases the flat leakage of a limiter. It was also concluded that, for VHF, an anti-parallel topology provides the best performance over a wide range of temperatures.