896 research outputs found
Introduction to the special issue on Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFIC) design techniques
Peer reviewe
Millimeter-wave Wireless LAN and its Extension toward 5G Heterogeneous Networks
Millimeter-wave (mmw) frequency bands, especially 60 GHz unlicensed band, are
considered as a promising solution for gigabit short range wireless
communication systems. IEEE standard 802.11ad, also known as WiGig, is
standardized for the usage of the 60 GHz unlicensed band for wireless local
area networks (WLANs). By using this mmw WLAN, multi-Gbps rate can be achieved
to support bandwidth-intensive multimedia applications. Exhaustive search along
with beamforming (BF) is usually used to overcome 60 GHz channel propagation
loss and accomplish data transmissions in such mmw WLANs. Because of its short
range transmission with a high susceptibility to path blocking, multiple number
of mmw access points (APs) should be used to fully cover a typical target
environment for future high capacity multi-Gbps WLANs. Therefore, coordination
among mmw APs is highly needed to overcome packet collisions resulting from
un-coordinated exhaustive search BF and to increase the total capacity of mmw
WLANs. In this paper, we firstly give the current status of mmw WLANs with our
developed WiGig AP prototype. Then, we highlight the great need for coordinated
transmissions among mmw APs as a key enabler for future high capacity mmw
WLANs. Two different types of coordinated mmw WLAN architecture are introduced.
One is the distributed antenna type architecture to realize centralized
coordination, while the other is an autonomous coordination with the assistance
of legacy Wi-Fi signaling. Moreover, two heterogeneous network (HetNet)
architectures are also introduced to efficiently extend the coordinated mmw
WLANs to be used for future 5th Generation (5G) cellular networks.Comment: 18 pages, 24 figures, accepted, invited paper
Millimeter-wave Evolution for 5G Cellular Networks
Triggered by the explosion of mobile traffic, 5G (5th Generation) cellular
network requires evolution to increase the system rate 1000 times higher than
the current systems in 10 years. Motivated by this common problem, there are
several studies to integrate mm-wave access into current cellular networks as
multi-band heterogeneous networks to exploit the ultra-wideband aspect of the
mm-wave band. The authors of this paper have proposed comprehensive
architecture of cellular networks with mm-wave access, where mm-wave small cell
basestations and a conventional macro basestation are connected to
Centralized-RAN (C-RAN) to effectively operate the system by enabling power
efficient seamless handover as well as centralized resource control including
dynamic cell structuring to match the limited coverage of mm-wave access with
high traffic user locations via user-plane/control-plane splitting. In this
paper, to prove the effectiveness of the proposed 5G cellular networks with
mm-wave access, system level simulation is conducted by introducing an expected
future traffic model, a measurement based mm-wave propagation model, and a
centralized cell association algorithm by exploiting the C-RAN architecture.
The numerical results show the effectiveness of the proposed network to realize
1000 times higher system rate than the current network in 10 years which is not
achieved by the small cells using commonly considered 3.5 GHz band.
Furthermore, the paper also gives latest status of mm-wave devices and
regulations to show the feasibility of using mm-wave in the 5G systems.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, accepted to be published in IEICE Transactions
on Communications. (Mar. 2015
Equalization of Third-Order Intermodulation Products in Wideband Direct Conversion Receivers
This paper reports a SAW-less direct-conversion receiver which utilizes a mixed-signal feedforward path to regenerate and adaptively cancel IM3 products, thus accomplishing system-level linearization. The receiver system performance is dominated by a custom integrated RF front end implemented in 130-nm CMOS and achieves an uncorrected out-of-band IIP3 of -7.1 dBm under the worst-case UMTS FDD Region 1 blocking specifications. Under IM3 equalization, the receiver achieves an effective IIP3 of +5.3 dBm and meets the UMTS BER sensitivity requirement with 3.7 dB of margin
A Scalable 6-to-18 GHz Concurrent Dual-Band Quad-Beam Phased-Array Receiver in CMOS
This paper reports a 6-to-18 GHz integrated phased- array receiver implemented in 130-nm CMOS. The receiver is easily scalable to build a very large-scale phased-array system. It concurrently forms four independent beams at two different frequencies from 6 to 18 GHz. The nominal conversion gain of the receiver ranges from 16 to 24 dB over the entire band while the worst-case cross-band and cross-polarization rejections are achieved 48 dB and 63 dB, respectively. Phase shifting is performed in the LO path by a digital phase rotator with the worst-case RMS phase error and amplitude variation of 0.5° and 0.4 dB, respectively, over the entire band. A four-element phased-array receiver system is implemented based on four receiver chips. The measured array patterns agree well with the theoretical ones with a peak-to-null ratio of over 21.5 dB
Enhancing Digital Controllability in Wideband RF Transceiver Front-Ends for FTTx Applications
Enhancing the digital controllability of wideband RF transceiver front-ends helps in widening the range of operating conditions and applications in which such systems can be employed. Technology limitations and design challenges often constrain the extensive adoption of digital controllability in RF front-ends. This work focuses on three major aspects associated with the design and implementation of a digitally controllable RF transceiver front-end for enhanced digital control.
Firstly, the influence of the choice of semiconductor technology for a system-on-chip integration of digital gain control circuits are investigated. The digital control of gain is achieved by utilizing step attenuators that consist of cascaded switched attenuation stages. A design methodology is presented to evaluate the influence of the chosen technology on the performance of the three conventionally used switched attenuator topologies for desired attenuation levels, and the constraints that the technology suitable for high amplification places on the attenuator performance are examined.
Secondly, a novel approach to the integrated implementation of gain slope equalization is presented, and the suitability of the proposed approach for integration within the RF front-end is verified.
Thirdly, a sensitivity-aware implementation of a peak power detector is presented. The increased employment of digital gain control also increases the requirements on the sensitivity of the power detector employed for adaptive power and gain control. The design, implementation, and measurement results of a state-of-the-art wideband power detector with high sensitivity and large dynamic range are presented. The design is optimized to provide a large offset cancellation range, and the influence of offset cancellation circuits on the sensitivity of the power detector is studied. Moreover, design considerations for high sensitivity performance of the power detector are investigated, and the noise contributions from individual sub-circuits are evaluated.
Finally, a wideband RF transceiver front-end is realized using a commercially available SiGe BiCMOS technology to demonstrate the enhancements in the digital controllability of the system. The RF front-end has a bandwidth of 500 MHz to 2.5 GHz, an input dynamic range of 20 dB, a digital gain control range larger than 30 dB, a digital gain slope equalization range from 1.49 dB/GHz to 3.78 dB/GHz, and employs a power detector with a sensitivity of -56 dBm and dynamic range of 64 dB. The digital control in the RF front-end is implemented using an on-chip serial-parallel-interface (SPI) that is controlled by an external micro-controller. A prototype implementation of the RF front-end system is presented as part of an RFIC intended for use in optical transceiver modules for fiber-to-the-x applications
Volume 19 (2) 2013
New generation of General Purpose Graphic Processing Unit (GPGPU) cards with their large computation power allow to approach difficult tasks from Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFICs) modeling area. Using different electromagnetic modeling methods, the Finite Element Method (FEM) and the Finite Integration Technique (FIT), to model Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC) devices, large linear equations systems have to be solved. This paper presents the benefits of using Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) computations for solving such systems which are characterized by sparse complex matrices. CUSP is a GPU generic parallel algorithms library for sparse linear algebra and graph computations based on Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA). The code is calling iterative methods available in CUSP in order to solve those complex linear equation systems. The tests were performed on various Central Processing Units (CPU) and GPU hardware configurations. The results of these tests show that using GPU computations for solving the linear equations systems, the electromagnetic modeling process of RFIC devices can be accelerated and at the same time a high level of computation accuracy is maintained. Tests were carried out on matrices obtained for an integrated inductor designed for RFICs, and for Micro Stripe (MS) designed for Photonics Integrated Circuit (PIC).Pozna
A review of technologies and design techniques of millimeter-wave power amplifiers
his article reviews the state-of-the-art millimeter-wave (mm-wave) power amplifiers (PAs), focusing on broadband design techniques. An overview of the main solid-state technologies is provided, including Si, gallium arsenide (GaAs), GaN, and other III-V materials, and both field-effect and bipolar transistors. The most popular broadband design techniques are introduced, before critically comparing through the most relevant design examples found in the scientific literature. Given the wide breadth of applications that are foreseen to exploit the mm-wave spectrum, this contribution will represent a valuable guide for designers who need a single reference before adventuring in the challenging task of the mm-wave PA design
On the VCO/Frequency Divider Interface in Cryogenic CMOS PLL for Quantum Computing Applications
The availability of quantum microprocessors is mandatory, to efficiently run those quantum al-gorithms promising a radical leap forward in computation capability. Silicon-based nanostruc-tured qubits appear today as a very interesting approach, because of their higher information density, longer coherence times, fast operation gates, and compatibility with the actual CMOS technology. In particular, thanks to their phase noise properties, the actual CMOS RFIC Phase-Locked Loops (PLL) and Phase-Locked Oscillators (PLO) are interesting circuits to synthe-size control signals for spintronic qubits. In a quantum microprocessor, these circuits should op-erate close to the qubits, that is, at cryogenic temperatures. The lack of commercial cryogenic Design Kits (DK) may make the interface between the Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO) and the Frequency Divider (FD) a serious issue. Nevertheless, currently this issue has not been sys-tematically addressed in the literature. The aim of the present paper is to investigate the VCO/FD interface when the temperature drops from room to cryogenic. To this purpose, physi-cal models of electronics passive/active devices and equivalent circuits of VCO and the FD were developed at room and cryogenic temperatures. The modeling activity has led to design guide-lines for the VCO/FD interface, useful in the absence of cryogenic DKs
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