Silicon-based RF/MMW Integrated Circuits for GBPS Wireless Communication, Automotive Radar and Imaging

Silicon-based RF/MMW Integrated Circuits for GBPS Wireless Communication, Automotive Radar and Imaging
Author: Lei Zhou
Publisher:
Total Pages: 119
Release: 2010
Genre:
ISBN: 9781109675092

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Silicon-based integrated circuits used in the wireless technology have a great impact on our world. Moreover, such trend is continuing with ever-decreasing size of transistors. High speed wireless communication links are expected to become popular within most mobile devices in the next few years. On the other side, millimeter-wave (MMW) frequency has always been the terrain dominated by III-V compound semiconductor technology. However, the cost and low manufacturing yield of such systems prevent its commercialized use for new exciting applications, such as automotive intelligent system and imaging for public security and medical application. As the technology scaling in silicon, the increasing process ft and higher level of integration are promising to build lower cost, smaller sized MMW systems. This dissertation is following the goal to design and implement several prototype silicon-based integrated circuits at different technology nodes to address the key challenges faced by silicon both in circuit- and system-levels, therefore pave the path towards the fully-integrated systems for those emerging applications. A carrier-less RF-correlation-based impulse radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) transceiver front-end designed in 130nm CMOS process is presented. Timing synchronization and coherent demodulation are implemented directly in the RF domain. In order to solve the extremely large dynamic requirement of delay for RF synchronization, a template-based delay generation scheme is proposed and a 25ps timing resolution is achieved with a delay range of 500ps by a two-step timing synchronizer. The TRX achieves a maximum data rate of 2Gbps, while requiring only 51.5pJ/pulse in the TX mode and 72.9pJ/pulse in the RX mode. Finally a W-band receiver chipset for passive millimeter-wave imaging in a 65-nm standard CMOS technology is presented. The receiver design addresses the high 1/f noise issue in the advanced CMOS technology. An LO generation scheme is proposed to make it suitable for use in multi-pixel systems. In addition, the noise performance of the receiver is further improved by optimum biasing of transistors of the detector to achieve the highest responsivity and lowest NEP. The receiver chipset achieves a Dicke NETD of 0.52K, demonstrating the potential of CMOS for future low-cost portable passive imaging cameras.

Microwave Circuits for 24 GHz Automotive Radar in Silicon-based Technologies

Microwave Circuits for 24 GHz Automotive Radar in Silicon-based Technologies
Author: Vadim Issakov
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2010-08-05
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3642135986

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There are continuous efforts focussed on improving road traffic safety worldwide. Numerous vehicle safety features have been invented and standardized over the past decades. Particularly interesting are the driver assistance systems, since these can considerably reduce the number of accidents by supporting drivers’ perception of their surroundings. Many driver assistance features rely on radar-based sensors. Nowadays the commercially available automotive front-end sensors are comprised of discrete components, thus making the radar modules highly-priced and suitable for integration only in premium class vehicles. Realization of low-cost radar fro- end circuits would enable their implementation in inexpensive economy cars, c- siderably contributing to traffic safety. Cost reduction requires high-level integration of the microwave front-end c- cuitry, specifically analog and digital circuit blocks co-located on a single chip. - cent developments of silicon-based technologies, e.g. CMOS and SiGe:C bipolar, make them suitable for realization of microwave sensors. Additionally, these te- nologies offer the necessary integration capability. However, the required output power and temperature stability, necessary for automotive radar sensor products, have not yet been achieved in standard digital CMOS technologies. On the other hand, SiGe bipolar technology offers excellent high-frequency characteristics and necessary output power for automotive applications, but has lower potential for - alization of digital blocks than CMOS.

Radio-Frequency Integrated-Circuit Engineering

Radio-Frequency Integrated-Circuit Engineering
Author: Cam Nguyen
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 884
Release: 2015-03-04
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1118900472

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Radio-Frequency Integrated-Circuit Engineering addresses the theory, analysis and design of passive and active RFIC's using Si-based CMOS and Bi-CMOS technologies, and other non-silicon based technologies. The materials covered are self-contained and presented in such detail that allows readers with only undergraduate electrical engineering knowledge in EM, RF, and circuits to understand and design RFICs. Organized into sixteen chapters, blending analog and microwave engineering, Radio-Frequency Integrated-Circuit Engineering emphasizes the microwave engineering approach for RFICs. * Provides essential knowledge in EM and microwave engineering, passive and active RFICs, RFIC analysis and design techniques, and RF systems vital for RFIC students and engineers * Blends analog and microwave engineering approaches for RFIC design at high frequencies * Includes problems at the end of each chapter

Advances in Analog and RF IC Design for Wireless Communication Systems

Advances in Analog and RF IC Design for Wireless Communication Systems
Author: Gabriele Manganaro
Publisher: Elsevier Inc. Chapters
Total Pages: 14
Release: 2013-05-13
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0128064471

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The recent and dramatic increase in demand for mobile data communication, driven by consumer devices such as smartphones and tablets, is resulting in heightened technical challenges for the wireless infrastructure that lies as a bridge in-between these mobile terminals and the wired network transferring the data between final users. Several challenges arise in the design of the electronics behind the wireless infrastructure access points, or base-stations. This Chapter provides an overview of the present state, challenges and trends in the RF, analog and mixed signal electronics for wireless infrastructure and provides a frame to orient the reader of this book to the following chapters covering the specifics of the technologies involved.

Silicon-Based RF Front-Ends for Ultra Wideband Radios

Silicon-Based RF Front-Ends for Ultra Wideband Radios
Author: Aminghasem Safarian
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 97
Release: 2007-12-28
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1402067224

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A comprehensive study of silicon-based distributed architectures in wideband circuits are presented in this book. Novel circuit architectures for ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless technologies are described. The book begins with an introduction of several transceiver architectures for UWB. The discussion then focuses on RF front-end of the UWB radio. Therefore, the book will be of interest to RF circuit designers and students.

Millimeter-wave Silicon-based Ultra-wideband Automotive Radar Transceivers

Millimeter-wave Silicon-based Ultra-wideband Automotive Radar Transceivers
Author: Vipul Jain
Publisher:
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2009
Genre:
ISBN: 9781109356694

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Since the invention of the integrated circuit, the semiconductor industry has revolutionized the world in ways no one had ever anticipated. With the advent of silicon technologies, consumer electronics became light-weight and affordable and paved the way for an Information Communication-Entertainment age. While silicon almost completely replaced compound semiconductors from these markets, it has been unable to compete in areas with more stringent requirements due to technology limitations. One of these areas is automotive radar sensors, which will enable next-generation collision warning systems in automobiles. A low-cost implementation is absolutely essential for widespread use of these systems, which leads us to the subject of this dissertation--silicon-based solutions for automotive radars. This dissertation presents architectures and design techniques for mm-wave automotive radar transceivers. Several fully-integrated transceivers and receivers operating at 22-29 GHz and 77-81 GHz are demonstrated in both CMOS and SiGe BiCMOS technologies. Excellent performance is achieved indicating the suitability of silicon technologies for automotive radar sensors. The first CMOS 22-29-GHz pulse-radar receiver front-end for ultra-wideband radars is presented. The chip includes a low noise amplifier, I/Q mixers, quadrature voltage-controlled oscillators, pulse formers and variable-gain amplifiers. Fabricated in 0.18-um CMOS, the receiver achieves a conversion gain of 35 38.1 dB and a noise figure of 5.5 7.4 dB. Integration of multi-mode multi-band transceivers on a single chip will enable next-generation low-cost automotive radar sensors. Two highly-integrated silicon ICs are designed in a 0.18-um BiCMOS technology. These designs are also the first reported demonstrations of mm-wave circuits with high-speed digital circuits on the same chip. The first mm-wave dual-band frequency synthesizer and transceiver, operating in the 24-GHz and 77-GHz bands, are demonstrated. All circuits except the oscillators are shared between the two bands. A multi-functional injection-locked circuit is used after the oscillators to reconfigure the division ratio inside the phase-locked loop. The synthesizer is suitable for integration in automotive radar transceivers and heterodyne receivers for 94-GHz imaging applications. The transceiver chip includes a dual-band low noise amplifier, a shared downconversion chain, dual-band pulse formers, power amplifiers, a dual-band frequency synthesizer and a high-speed programmable baseband pulse generator. Radar functionality is demonstrated using loopback measurements.

Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits and Technologies

Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits and Technologies
Author: Frank Ellinger
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 518
Release: 2007-03-21
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3540357904

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The striking feature of this book is its coverage of the upper GHz domain. However, the latest technologies, applications and broad range of circuits are discussed. Design examples are provided including cookbook-like optimization strategies. This state-of-the-art book is valuable for researchers as well as for engineers in industry. Furthermore, the book serves as fruitful basis for lectures in the area of IC design.

Silicon-based Millimeter-wave Circuits for W-band Applications

Silicon-based Millimeter-wave Circuits for W-band Applications
Author: Chun-Cheng Wang
Publisher:
Total Pages: 115
Release: 2012
Genre:
ISBN: 9781267256614

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Historically, monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) have been designed using III-V semiconductor technologies, such as GaAs and InP. In recent years, the number of publications reporting silicon-based millimeter-wave (mm-wave) transmitter, receivers, and transceivers has grown steadily. For mm-wave applications including gigabit/s point-to-point links (57-64 GHz), automotive radar (77-81 GHz) and imaging (94 GHz) to reach mainstream market, the cost, size and power consumption of silicon-based solution has to be significantly below what is being achieved today using compound semiconductor technology. This dissertation focuses the effort of designing and implementing silicon-based solutions through circuit- and system-level innovation for applications in the W-band frequency band (75-110GHz), in particular, 94GHz passive imaging band. A W-band front-end receiver in 65nm CMOS based entirely on slow-wave CPW (SW-CPW) with frequency tripler as the LO is designed and measured. The receiver achieves a total gain of 35-dB, -3dB-BW of 12 GHz, a NF of 9-dB, a P1-dB of -40dBm, a low power consumption of 108mW under 1.2/0.8V. This front-end receiver chipset in conjuction with an analog back-end can be used to form a radiometer. Leveraging the work done in 65nm CMOS, the first integrated 2x2 focal-plane array (FPA) for passive imaging is implemented in a 0.18um SiGe BiCMOS process (fT/fmax=200/180GHz). The FPA incorporates four Dicke-type receivers. Each receiver employs a direct-conversion architecture consisting of an on-chip slot dipole antenna, an SPDT switch, a lower noise amplifier, a single-balanced mixer, an injection-locked frequency tripler (ILFT), a zero-IF variable gain amplifier, a power detector, an active bandpass filter and a synchronous demodulator. The LO signal is generated by a shared Ka-band PLL and distributed symmetrically to four ILFTs. This work demonstrates the highest level of integration of any silicon-based systems in the 94GHz imaging band. Finally, the main design bottleneck of any wireless transceiver system, the frequency synthesizer/phase-locked loop is investigated. Two monolithically integrated W-band frequency synthesizers are presented. Implemented in a 0.18um SiGe BiCMOS, both architectures incorporate the same 30.3-33.8GHz PLL core. One synthesizer uses an injection-locked frequency tripler (ILFT) with locking range of 92.8-98.1GHz and the other employ a harmonic-based frequency tripler (HBFT) with 3-dB bandwidth of 10.5GHz from 90.9-101.4GHz, respectively. The frequency synthesizer is suitable for integration in mm-wave phased array and multi-pixel systems such as W-band radar/imaging and 120GHz Gb/s communication.

Integrated Circuit and Antenna Technology for Millimeter-wave Phased Array Radio Front-end

Integrated Circuit and Antenna Technology for Millimeter-wave Phased Array Radio Front-end
Author: Mohammad-Reza Nezhad-Ahmadi
Publisher:
Total Pages: 157
Release: 2010
Genre:
ISBN:

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Ever growing demands for higher data rate and bandwidth are pushing extremely high data rate wireless applications to millimeter-wave band (30-300GHz), where sufficient bandwidth is available and high data rate wireless can be achieved without using complex modulation schemes. In addition to the communication applications, millimeter-wave band has enabled novel short range and long range radar sensors for automotive as well as high resolution imaging systems for medical and security. Small size, high gain antennas, unlicensed and worldwide availability of released bands for communication and a number of other applications are other advantages of the millimeter-wave band. The major obstacle for the wide deployment of commercial wireless and radar systems in this frequency range is the high cost and bulky nature of existing GaAs- and InP-based solutions. In recent years, with the rapid scaling and development of the silicon-based integrated circuit technologies such as CMOS and SiGe, low cost technologies have shown acceptable millimeter-wave performance, which can enable highly integrated millimeter-wave radio devices and reduce the cost significantly. Furthermore, at this range of frequencies, on-chip antenna becomes feasible and can be considered as an attractive solution that can further reduce the cost and complexity of the radio package. The propagation channel challenges for the realization of low cost and reliable silicon-based communication devices at millimeter-wave band are severe path loss as well as shadowing loss of human body. Silicon technology challenges are low-Q passive components, low breakdown voltage of active devices, and low efficiency of on-chip antennas. The main objective of this thesis is to investigate and to develop antenna and front-end for cost-effective silicon based millimeter-wave phased array radio architectures that can address above challenges for short range, high data rate wireless communication as well as radar applications.

Multi-band Reconfigurable RFICs in Si-based Technologies for a Compact and Adaptive RF Front-end

Multi-band Reconfigurable RFICs in Si-based Technologies for a Compact and Adaptive RF Front-end
Author: Asad Ali Nawaz
Publisher:
Total Pages: 89
Release: 2020
Genre: Electronic dissertations
ISBN: 9781658478649

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Recent advances in the wireless communication market have led to the coexistence of several networks such as cellular network, personal area network (PAN), wireless local area network (WLAN), etc. along with several different air interfaces (802.11a, 802.11g, Bluetooth, wireless code division multiple access (WCDMA), etc.). Thus, all the wireless devices need to be compatible with the different communication standards while still keeping similar performance, smaller die area and lower power consumption. The need to enable the "global roaming'' capability between a wide variety of networks operating at different frequencies calls for the development of reconfigurable radio-frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) which can achieve maximum hardware sharing between different standards and across various functions. The objective of this dissertation is to present novel topologies for RF components and blocks that can yield a Si-based frequency-agile RF front-end. The targeted applications for this work are 5G multi-band wireless communication and reconfigurable short/long range phased arrays for automobile radars. However, the concept of the proposed reconfigurable RF elements is generic in nature and can be applied to all emerging applications which require on-chip reconfigurability at microwave and mm-wave frequencies.To demonstrate the concept of a reconfigurable RF front end, a Ka/V band-switchable TRX amplifier is developed in 0.13um BiCMOS SiGe process and a 18-50 GHz receiver is developed in 45nm SOI CMOS process. Unlike the traditional approach for a multi-band radio - where the dedicated single band transceivers composed of fixed RF components are designed and multiplexed with the help of switches - the proposed idea utilizes the switches inside each RF block; thus, adding the reconfigurability inside each block and eliminating the need for separate front-ends. However, the catch in the latter approach is to maintain the RF performance while still being able to save the real estate and power consumption. The proposed Ka/V band-switchable TRX amplifier consists of a band-switchable LNA, a band-switchable PA, and integrated T/R switches which saves a lot of area. The band-switch functionality is realized using thin-film microstrip based shunt stubs with reverse saturated SiGe switches. Design techniques for switch loss reduction and size miniaturizations are presented. This work illustrates that with the optimization of switch loss, appropriate selection of each block between wideband or bandswitching topology and co-design of RF blocks, a highly integrated multi-band transceiver can be designed with the minimal degradation to the RF performance compared to state-of-the-art dedicated single band transceivers. To further explore reconfigurable transceivers, a direct quadrature down-conversion mixer first receiver with active channel select filters has been designed. The receiver supports 200MHz instantaneous RF bandwidth and can be reconfigured to receive any 200 MHz channel within 18-50 GHz frequency range. With the ever-evolving wireless standards like 4G/5G/6G, equipment manufacturers are required to add more functionality into the chips while still maintaining the backward compatibility with previous standards or fallback option to lower frequency bands. A low power, highly integrated, multi-band and multi-standard chipset has thus become a requisite in commercial products. The proposed concept of in-block reconfigurability and the presented design techniques to realize mm-wave frequency reconfigurable transceivers have a huge potential in this regard.