AMCAD Engineering has observed and analyzed different challenges that foundries face when a transistor need to be measured and modeled for circuit design :
You have technical know-how implemented in internally developed solutions. Although these solutions allow you to control your measurement benches, view your results or extract models, they are not flexible and are not necessarily all developed on the same platform. You must convert data from format A to format B to cover the entire workflow, making the process inefficient.
When designing a power amplifier with a circuit type simulator, the simulation and measurement results are not perfectly aligned. A second design may be required after the design adjustment work, which is time-consuming and very expensive.
You spend too much time learning and using different tools to characterize your components and analyze large data files.
You lack confidence in the accuracy of compact models
Measurements and extractions are not made on the same software platform
The supplied transistor model may generally be sufficient but not sufficiently suitable for your design. It must be accurate for those specific operating conditions.
You are concerned that the system’s performances may degrade if there is a mismatch between the circuits. You don’t know if your RF PA is 50 Ohms matched. You may need to apply some settings to optimize PAE (efficiency) or output power. The matching circuits may need to be re-tuned.
There are oscillations at the desired frequency and bias conditions. This stability issue makes it impossible to use the design for your application. It is necessary to do a new design iteration.