Advances in Aging Compact Model for Hot Carrier Degradation in SiGe HBTs under Dynamic Operating conditions for reliability-aware circuit design

International audienc

Dynamic electrothermal macromodeling techniques for thermal-aware design of circuits and systems

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Iodine Atoms: A New Molecular Feature for the Design of Potent Transthyretin Fibrillogenesis Inhibitors

The thyroid hormone and retinol transporter protein known as transthyretin (TTR) is in the origin of one of the 20 or so known amyloid diseases. TTR self assembles as a homotetramer leaving a central hydrophobic channel with two symmetrical binding sites. The aggregation pathway of TTR into amiloid fibrils is not yet well characterized but in vitro binding of thyroid hormones and other small organic molecules to TTR binding channel results in tetramer stabilization which prevents amyloid formation in an extent which is proportional to the binding constant. Up to now, TTR aggregation inhibitors have been designed looking at various structural features of this binding channel others than its ability to host iodine atoms. In the present work, greatly improved inhibitors have been designed and tested by taking into account that thyroid hormones are unique in human biochemistry owing to the presence of multiple iodine atoms in their molecules which are probed to interact with specific halogen binding domains sitting at the TTR binding channel. The new TTR fibrillogenesis inhibitors are based on the diflunisal core structure because diflunisal is a registered salicylate drug with NSAID activity now undergoing clinical trials for TTR amyloid diseases. Biochemical and biophysical evidence confirms that iodine atoms can be an important design feature in the search for candidate drugs for TTR related amyloidosis

A monolithic 5.8 GHZ power amplifier in a 25 GHZ FT Silicon Bipolar technology

A monolithic integrated radio-frequency power amplifier for the 5.8 GHz band has been realized in a 25 GHz-fT Si-bipolar production technology (B6HF). The 2-stage push-pull type power amplifier uses a planar on-chip transformer as input-balun and for interstage matching. A high-current cascode stage is used for the driver and for the output stage. At 2.7 V, 3.6 V, and 5 V supply voltage a maximum output power of 21.9 dBm, 24 dBm and 26 dBm at 5.8 GHz is achieved. The small-signal gain is 20 dB

Monolithic Low-Noise Amplifiers up to 10 GHz in Silicon and SiGe Bipolar Technologies

The noise properties of silicon and SiGe bipolar technologies at identical de- sign rules are evaluated by theory and by ex- perimental LNAs designed for the frequen- cies of 2 GHz, 6 GHz, and 10 GHz. For a fair comparison the same circuit principle is used for all six LNAs, with gain of about 20 dB or above, suitable for the applications in wireless communications

A fully differential 100 - 140 GHz frequency quadrupler in a 130 nm SiGe:C technology for MIMO radar applications using the bootstrapped Gilbert-cell doubler topology

This paper presents a frequency quadrupler implemented in a 130 nm SiGe:C technology suitable for radar systems with spatially distributed transmitters and receivers. The circuit is based on cascading the bootstrapped Gilbert-Cell doubler topology with differential inputs and differential outputs presented in [1]. In conjunction with a balancing input preamplifier and output buffer amplifier, a maximum power conversion gain of 26 dB and an output power of 0 - 4 dBm over 40 GHz (28 %) bandwidth in the range of 120 - 160 GHz is achieved. The frequency quadrupler operates at a power consumption of 132 mW with a 1 dB input gain compression point of -22 dBm. The differential output amplitude imbalance in the desired frequency range of 100 - 140GHz is well below +/- 1 dB and the preamplifier input match is better than -10 dB between 25 - 35GHz

A Mixed-Mode Beamforming Radar Transmitter MMIC Utilizing Novel Ultrawideband IQ-Generation Techniques in SiGe BiCMOS

Wireless systems like radar and communication systems evolved progressively into multichannel systems over the past years. The most common multichannel concepts are multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and phased array architectures. In this paper, we present a transmitter monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) in a SiGe BiCMOS technology for its application, a mixed-mode frequency modulated continuous wave radar that is able to operate in both ways, in an MIMO and a beamforming mode. The MIMO mode is used for medium range and fast 3-D scans and the phased array mode is used for beamforming. This mode increases the effective output power of the transmitted signal beam and thus system dynamic and detection range. For this purpose, we developed ultrawideband quadrature (IQ) generation techniques to generate synchronous IQ-signals in each channel of our system to feed a vector adder, which is capable of shifting the phase for beamforming. The developed IQ-generation circuits are able to operate from 1 to 30 GHz, and the complete radar transmitter MMIC, including a power amplifier (PA), operates from 11 to 20 GHz. The IQ-generation phase error in this frequency range is below 6° and below 9°/3.2°rms for the IQ-generation together with vector modulator. The power consumption is 285 mW and the PA consumes 1.25 W with a maximum output power of the complete multimode TX MMIC of 24.4 dBm at 15 GHz

A 1-30 GHz 3-bit vector modulator based on ultra-wideband IQ-generation for MIMO-radar-systems in SiGe BiCMOS

MIMO phased array radar systems benefit from beamforming in order to increase system dynamic and detection range. Therefore, an ultra-wideband IQ signal generation concept for driving a vector adder, which produces the desired phase shift in each channel of a MIMO phased array radar system, has been developed. The classic concept to generate wideband quadrature signals that uses a frequency doubler and a static frequency divider brings a 0°/180° phase uncertainty at the dividers outputs which makes this concept useless when using multiple TX-channels at once like in beamforming MIMO phased array radars. Therefore, the classical concept has been enhanced with two possible solutions which are presented in this work. The novel concepts are able to operate from 1-30 GHz

A 61 GHz SiGe transmitter chip for energy and data transmission of passive RFID single chip tags with integrated antennas

This paper presents a SiGe transmitter chip for short-range devices in the 61 GHz ISM frequency band. The presented transmitter consists of a fundamental VCO, a PA, lumped element Wilkinson-Dividers and a static divide-by-16 chain for stabilization in a PLL. Two variants of the transmitter are fabricated with supply voltages of 3.3 V and 5 V in a modern 130nm SiGe BiCMOS technology with HBTs offering an ft of 250 GHz and fmax of 370 GHz. The main goal of this work is to achieve an efficient signal source to supply a passive RFID tag with the maximum allowed 20 dBm EIRP for short range devices. The transmitter chips achieve a peak output power of 17 dBm, PAEpa of 18.8% and DC-to-RF efficiency of 12.9% (excluding the divider). At 61 GHz a phase noise of -102 dBc/Hz is achieved. The power consumption for the chips are 710 mW and 482 mW for the 5 V and 3.3 V variant, respectively

A Multipurpose 76 GHz Radar Transceiver System for Automotive Applications Based on SiGe MMICs

In this paper a SiGe chipset for automotive applications in the band around 76 GHz is presented. The first MMIC contains a VCO at a frequency of 38 GHz for LO generation. The second MMIC encloses a complete transceiver at 76 GHz. The main goal of this work is to create a first functional version of a VCO and an one channel transceiver MMIC. With these MMICs it will be possible to build up multipurpose radar systems with a variable number of transceivers, to construct MIMO architectures. What makes this system innovative is the fact, that it is able to handle broader signals than know systems. Furthermore it isn't limited to one modulation scheme. It is possible to transmit and receive any signal form with platforms build out of these chips. The VCO MMIC achieves a tuning frequency range of 5 GHz with a center frequency of 35 GHz. It consumes 152 mW from a 3.3 V supply. The transceiver MMIC is fully functional and achieves a saturated output power of 9.5 dBm drawing 570 mW from a 3.3 V supply