302 research outputs found

    GigaHertz Symposium 2010

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    Voltage controlled oscillator for mm-wave radio systems

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    Abstract. The advancement in silicon technology has accelerated the development of integrated millimeter-wave transceiver systems operating up to 100 GHz with sophisticated functionality at a reduced consumer cost. Due to the progress in the field of signal processing, frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar has become common in recent years. A high-performance local oscillator (LO) is required to generate reference signals utilized in these millimeter-wave radar transceivers. To accomplish this, novel design techniques in fundamental voltage controlled oscillators (VCO) are necessary to achieve low phase noise, wide frequency tuning range, and good power efficiency. Although integrated VCOs have been studied for decades, as we move higher in the radio frequency spectrum, there are new trade-offs in the performance parameters that require further characterization. The work described in this thesis aims to design a fully integrated fundamental VCO targeting to 150 GHz, i.e., D-Band. The purpose is to observe and analyze the design limitations at these high frequencies and their corresponding trade-offs during the design procedure. The topology selected for this study is the cross-coupled LC tank VCO. For the study, two design topologies were considered: a conventional cross-coupled LC tank VCO and an inductive divider cross-coupled LC tank VCO. The conventional LC tank VCO yields better performance in terms of phase noise and tuning range. It is observed that the VCO is highly sensitive to parasitic contributions by the transistors, and the layout interconnects, thus limiting the targeted frequency range. The dimensions of the LC tank and the transistors are selected carefully. Moreover, the VCO performance is limited by the low Q factor of the LC tank governed by the varactor that is degrading the phase noise performance and the tuning range, respectively. The output buffer loaded capacitance and the core power consumption of the VCO are optimized. The layout is drawn carefully with strategies to minimize the parasitic effects. Considering all the design challenges, a 126 GHz VCO with a tuning range of 3.9% is designed. It achieves FOMT (Figure-of-merit) of -172 dBc/Hz, and phase noise of -99.14 dBc/Hz at 10 MHz offset, Core power consumption is 8.9 mW from a 1.2 V supply. Just falling short of the targeted frequency, the design is suitable for FMCW radar applications for future technologies. The design was done using Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) CMOS technology

    Integrated phased array systems in silicon

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    Silicon offers a new set of possibilities and challenges for RF, microwave, and millimeter-wave applications. While the high cutoff frequencies of the SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistors and the ever-shrinking feature sizes of MOSFETs hold a lot of promise, new design techniques need to be devised to deal with the realities of these technologies, such as low breakdown voltages, lossy substrates, low-Q passives, long interconnect parasitics, and high-frequency coupling issues. As an example of complete system integration in silicon, this paper presents the first fully integrated 24-GHz eight-element phased array receiver in 0.18-μm silicon-germanium and the first fully integrated 24-GHz four-element phased array transmitter with integrated power amplifiers in 0.18-μm CMOS. The transmitter and receiver are capable of beam forming and can be used for communication, ranging, positioning, and sensing applications

    A Fully-Integrated Quad-Band GSM/GPRS CMOS Power Amplifier

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    Concentric distributed active transformers (DAT) are used to implement a fully-integrated quad-band power amplifier (PA) in a standard 130 nm CMOS process. The DAT enables the power amplifier to integrate the input and output matching networks on the same silicon die. The PA integrates on-chip closed-loop power control and operates under supply voltages from 2.9 V to 5.5 V in a standard micro-lead-frame package. It shows no oscillations, degradation, or failures for over 2000 hours of operation with a supply of 6 V at 135° under a VSWR of 15:1 at all phase angles and has also been tested for more than 2 million device-hours (with ongoing reliability monitoring) without a single failure under nominal operation conditions. It produces up to +35 dBm of RF power with power-added efficiency of 51%

    Utilisation of microsystems technology in radio frequency and microwave applications

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    The market trends of the rapidly growing communication systems require new product architectures and services that are only realisable by utilising technologies beyond that of planar integrated circuits. Microsystems technology (MST) is one such technology which can revolutionise radio frequency (RF) and microwave applications. This article discusses the enabling potential of the MST to meet the stringent requirements of modern communication systems. RF MST fabrication technologies and actuation mechanisms empower conventional processes by alleviating the substrate effects on passive devices and provide product designers with high quality versatile microscale components which can facilitate system integration and lead to novel architectures with enhanced robustness and reduced power consumption. An insight on the variety of components that can be fabricated using the MST is given, emphasizing their excellent electrical performance and versatility. Research issues that need to be addressed are also discussed. Finally, this article discusses the main approaches for integrating MST devices in RF and microwave applications together with the difficulties that need to be overcome in order to make such devices readily available for volume-production.peer-reviewe

    Demonstration of fully integrated parity-time-symmetric electronics

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    Harnessing parity-time (PT) symmetry with balanced gain and loss profiles has created a variety of opportunities in electronics from wireless energy transfer to telemetry sensing and topological defect engineering. However, existing implementations often employ ad-hoc approaches at low operating frequencies and are unable to accommodate large-scale integration. Here, we report a fully integrated realization of PT-symmetry in a standard complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology. Our work demonstrates salient PT-symmetry features such as phase transition as well as the ability to manipulate broadband microwave generation and propagation beyond the limitations encountered by exiting schemes. The system shows 2.1 times bandwidth and 30 percentage noise reduction compared to conventional microwave generation in oscillatory mode and displays large non-reciprocal microwave transport from 2.75 to 3.10 gigahertz in non-oscillatory mode due to enhanced nonlinearities. This approach could enrich integrated circuit (IC) design methodology beyond well-established performance limits and enable the use of scalable IC technology to study topological effects in high-dimensional non-Hermitian systems.Comment: 52 pages (16 pages Main Text, 28 pages Supplementary Materials, 4 pages reference), 27 figures (4 figures Main Text, 23 figures Supplementary Materials), 93 references (50 references Main Text, 43 references Supplementary Materials
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