4 research outputs found
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Surpassing Fundamental Limits through Time Varying Electromagnetics
Surpassing the fundamental limits that govern all electromagnetic structures, such as reciprocity and the delay-bandwidth-size limit, will have a transformative impact on all applications based on electromagnetic circuits and systems. For instance, violating principles of reciprocity enables non-reciprocal components such as isolators and circulators, which find application in full-duplex wireless radios, radar, biomedical imaging, and quantum computing systems. Overcoming the delay-bandwidth-size limit enables ultra-broadband yet extremely-compact devices whose size is not fundamentally related to the wavelength at the operating frequency. The focus of this dissertation is on using time-variance as a new toolbox to overcome these fundamental limits and re-imagine circuit and system design.
Traditional non-reciprocal components are realized using ferrite materials that loose their reciprocity under the application of external magnetic bias. However, the sheer volume, cost and weight of these magnet based non-reciprocal components coupled with their inability to be fabricated in conventional semiconductor processes, have limited their application to bulky and large-scale systems. Other approaches such as active-biased and non-linearity based non-reciprocity are compatible with semiconductor processes, however, they suffer from other poor linearity and noise performance. In this dissertation, using passive transistor switch as the modulating element, we have proposed the concept of spatio-temporal conductivity modulation and have demonstrated a gamut of non-reciprocal devices ranging from gyrators to isolators and circulators. Through novel circuit topologies, for the first time, we have demonstrated on-chip circulators with multi-watt input power handling, operation at high millimeter-wave frequencies, and tailor made circulators for emerging technologies such as simultaneous-transmit-and-receive MRI and quantum computing.
Delay-bandwidth-size trade-off is another fundamental electromagnetic limit, that constrains the delay imparted by a medium or a device within a fixed footprint to be inversely proportional to the signal bandwidth. It is this limit that governs the size of any microwave passive devices to be inversely proportional to its operating frequency. As a part of this dissertation, through intelligent clocking of switched capacitor networks we overcame the delay-bandwidth-size limit, thus resulting in infinitesimal, yet broadband microwave devices. Here we proposed a new paradigm in wave propagation where the properties such as the propagation delay and characteristic impedance does not depend on the constituent elements/materials of the medium, but rather heavily rely on the user-defined modulation scheme, thereby opening huge opportunities for realizing highly-reconfigurable passives. Leveraging these concepts, we demonstrated wide range of reciprocal an non-reciprocal devices including ultra-compact delay elements, highly-reconfigurable microwave passives, ultra-wideband circulators with infinitesimal form-factors and dispersion-free chip scale floquet topological insulators. Application of these devices have also been evaluated in real-world systems through our demonstrations of wideband, full-duplex receivers leveraging switched capacitors based true-time-delay interference cancelers and floquet topological insulator based antenna interfaces for full-duplex phased-arrays and ultra-wideband beamformers.
Furthermore, to cater the growing RF and microwave needs of future, large-scale quantum computing systems, we demonstrated a low-cryogenic, wideband circulator based on time modulation of superconducting devices. This superconducting circulator is expected to operate alongside the superconducting qubits, inside a dilution refrigerator at 10mK-100mK, thus enabling a tightly integrated quantum system. We also presented the design and implementation of a cryogenic-CMOS clock driver chip that will generate the clocks required by the superconducting circulator. Finally, we also demonstrated the design and implementation of a low-noise, low power consumption, 6GHz - 8GHz cryogenic downconversion receiver at 4K for cryogenic qubit readout
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Fully-Integrated Magnetic-Free Nonreciprocal Components by Breaking Lorentz Reciprocity: from Physics to Applications
Reciprocity is a fundamental physical precept that governs wave propagation in a wide variety of physical domains. The various reciprocity theorems state that the response of a system remains unchanged if the excitation source and the measuring point are interchanged within a medium, and are closely related to the concept of time reversal symmetry in physics. Lorentz reciprocity is a fundamental characteristic of linear, time-invariant electronic and photonic structures with symmetric permittivity and permeability tensors. However, breaking reciprocity enables the realization of nonreciprocal components, such as isolators and circulators, which are critical to electronic, optical and acoustic systems, as well as new functionalities and devices based on novel wave propagation modes.
Nonreciprocal components have traditionally relied on magnetic materials such as ferrites that lose reciprocity under the application of an external magnetic field through the Faraday Effect. The need for a magnetic bias limits the applicability of such approaches in small-form-factor Complementary Metal–Oxide–Semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible integrated devices. One of the main features of CMOS technology is the availability of high-speed transistor switches which can be turned ON and OFF, modulating the conductance of the medium.
In this dissertation, a novel approach to break Lorentz reciprocity is presented based on staggered commutation in Linear Periodically-Time-Varying (LPTV) circuits. We have demonstrated the world’s first CMOS passive magnetic-free nonreciprocal circulator through spatio-temporal conductivity modulation. Since conductivity in semiconductors can be modulated over a wide range (CMOS transistor ON/OFF conductance ratio at Radio Frequency (RF)/millimeter-wave frequencies is as high as 103-105), commutated LPTV networks break reciprocity within a deeply sub-wavelength form-factor with low loss and high linearity.
The resulting nonreciprocal components find application in antenna interfaces of wireless communication systems, connecting the Transmitter (TX) and the Receiver (RX) to a shared antenna. This is particularly important for full-duplex wireless, where the TX and the RX operate simultaneously at the same frequency band and need to be highly isolated in order to maintain receiver sensitivity. Multiple fully-integrated full-duplex receivers are demonstrated in this dissertation that best show the synergy between the physical concept and application-based implementations by using circuit techniques to benefit the system-level performance, such as TX-side linearity enhancement and co-design and co-optimization of the antenna interface and the RX and utilization of the multi-phase structure of our antenna interfaces for analog beamforming in multi-antenna systems.
Finally, this dissertation discusses some of the fundamental limits of space-time modulated nonreciprocal structures, as well as new directions to build nonreciprocal components which can ideally be infinitesimal in size. A novel family of inductor-less nonreciprocal components including circulators and isolators have been demonstrated that achieve a wide tuning range in an infinitesimal form-factor. This family of devices combine reciprocal and nonreciprocal modes of operation, through the transfer properties of fundamental and harmonics of the system and enable a wide variety of functionalities
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High-Performance Multi-Antenna Wireless for 5G and Beyond
Over the next decade, multi-antenna radios, including phased array and multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) radios, are expected to play an essential role in the next-generation of wireless networks. Phased arrays can reject spatial interferences and provide coherent beamforming gain, and MIMO technology promises to significantly enhance the system performance in the coverage, capacity, and user data rate through the beamforming or diversity/capacity gain which can substantially increase the range in wireless links, that are challenged from the transmitter (TX) power handling, receiver (RX) noise perspectives and a multi-path environment. Furthermore, the multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) can simultaneously serve multiple users which is vital for femtocell base stations and access points (AP).
Full-duplex (FD) wireless, namely simultaneous transmission and reception at the same frequency, is an emerging technology that has gained attention due to its potential to double the data throughput, as well as provide other benefits in the higher layers such as better spectral efficiency, reducing network and feedback signaling delays, and resolving hidden-node problems to avoid collisions. However, several challenges remain in the quest for the high-performance integrated FD radios. Transmitter power handling remains an open problem, particularly in FD radios that integrate a shared antenna interface. Secondly, FD operation must be achieved across antenna VSWR variations and a changing EM environment. Finally, FD must be extended to multi-antenna radios, including phased array and multi-input multi-output (MIMO) radios, as over the next decade, they are expected to play an essential role in the next generation of wireless networks. Multi-antenna FD operation, however, is challenged not only by the self-interference (SI) from each TX to its own RX but also cross-talk SI (CT-SI) between antennas. In this dissertation, first, a full-duplex phased array circulator-RX (circ.-RX) is proposed that achieves self-interference cancellation (SIC) through repurposing beamforming degrees of freedom (DoF) on TX and RX. Then, an FD MIMO circ.-RX is proposed that achieves SI and CT-SI cancellation (CT-SIC) through passive RF and shared-delay baseband (BB) canceller that addresses challenges associated with FD MIMO operation.
Wireless radios at millimeter-wave (mm-wave) frequencies enable the high-speed link for portable devices due to the wide-band spectrum available. Large-scale arrays are required to compensate for high path loss to form an mm-wave link. Mm-wave MIMO systems with digitization enable virtual arrays for radar, digital beamforming (DBF) for high mobility scenarios and spatial multiplexing. To preserve MIMO information, the received signal from each element in MIMO RX should be transported to ADC/DSP IC for DBF, and vice versa on the TX side. A large-scale array can be formed by tiling multiple mm-wave IC front-ends, and thus, a single-wire interface is desired between DSP IC and mm-wave ICs to reduce board routing complexity. Per-element digitization poses the challenge of handling high data-rate I/O in large-scale tiled MIMO mm-wave arrays. SERializer – DESerializer (SERDES) is traditionally being used as a high-speed link in computing systems and networks. However, SERDES results in a large area and power consumption. In this dissertation, a 60~GHz 4-element MIMO TX with a single-wire interface is presented that de-multiplexes the baseband signal of all elements and LO reference that are frequency-domain multiplexed on a single-wire coax cable