Impact of technology scaling and process variations on RF CMOS devices

Inspired by the huge improvement in the RF properties of CMOS devices, RF designers are invading the wireless market with all-CMOS RF transceivers and system-on-chip implementations. In this work, the impact of technology scaling on the RF properties of CMOS; frequency properties, noise performance, linearity, stability, and non-quasi static effects is investigated to provide RF designers with an insight to the capabilities of future CMOS technologies. Moreover, the RF frequency performance of CMOS is investigated under the influence of process variations for different CMOS generations. Using the BSIM4 model, it is found that future CMOS technologies have high prospects in the RF industry and will continue challenging other technologies in the RF domain to be the dominant technology for RF transceivers and system-on-chip implementations.     

Purification of inductors and improvement of phase noise in monolithic differential LC-VCOs

A novel idea for the improvement of phase noise in differential LC-VCOs with no degradation of power consumption is proposed. Being based on purification of inductors to enhance the quality factor (Q), the application of the idea in design of CMOS based Giga Hertz (GHz) range low power and low phase noise monolithic differential LC-VCOs is illustrated and analyzed. Post-layout simulations using CMOS 0.18 μm TSMC RF design kit are used for evaluation.     

Design of self-bias tail transistor technique for low phase noise CMOS VCO with harmonic suppression using capacitance ground

This paper presents a low phase noise wideband CMOS VCO based on the self-bias tail transistor technique and harmonic suppression using a capacitance ground. This VCO utilizes switching capacitor arrays in which four channels are able to be selected for multi-band application. Moreover, the design of CMOS VCO makes good use of the self-bias tail transistor and capacitance ground filter technique to reduce the phase noise. The MOS varactors are used as fine tuning for wideband operating application. The fully integrated VCO provides excellent performance with high FOM −193 dBc/Hz. The bandwidth of the frequency is 1.1 GHz and the tuning range is 13.8%. The power dissipation of the core circuit is 8.28 mW under a 1.8 V supply and phase noise is measured as low as −123.6 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset under 8.5 GHz oscillation frequencies. This VCO was made by the TSMC 0.18 μm 1P6M CMOS standard process and the chip area is 0.75×0.69 (mm²).     

New implementation of injection locked technique and its application to low phase noise quadrature oscillators

A new implementation of the injection locked technique is proposed. The incident signal is directly injected into the common-source connection node of the sub-harmonic oscillator instead of the gate of the tail current source, and a narrowband noise filtering network is inserted into the same node to suppress the tail current source noise. A novel quadrature oscillator with the proposed injection locked technique is presented. The simulations show that the phase noise of the quadrature oscillator is about 7 dB better than that of the stand-alone sub-harmonic oscillator. The quadrature oscillator has been implemented in 0.25 um CMOS process and the measured results show that the proposed quadrature oscillator could achieve a phase noise of −130 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset from 1.13 GHz carrier while only drawing an 8.0 mA current from the 2.5 V power supply.     

Impact of technology scaling on leakage power in nano-scale bulk CMOS digital standard cells

Leakage estimation is an important step in nano-scale technology digital design flows. While reliable data exist on leakage trends with bulk CMOS technology scaling in stand-alone devices and circuits, there is a lack of public domain results on the effect of scaling on leakage power consumption for a complete standard cell set. We present an analysis on a standard cell library applying a logic-level estimation model, supported by SPICE BSIM4 comparison. The logic-level model speedup over SPICE is >10³ with average accuracy below 1% error. We therefore explore the effects of scaling on the whole standard cell set with respect to different leakage mechanisms (sub-threshold, body, gate) and to input pattern dependence. While body leakage appears to be dominant, sub-threshold leakage is expected to increase more than other components with scaling. Detailed data of the whole analysis are reported for use in further research on leakage aware digital design.     

一种双控制回路低相位噪声CMOS压控振荡器设计

在集成锁相环中,压控振荡器的输出频率范围要能随所有工艺和工作条件的变化而覆盖所需的频率范围。增大压控振荡器的增益而实现宽调协范围会增加压控振荡器和锁相环的相位噪声。在这篇文章中,通过两路控制来得到压控振荡器中心频率可调,实现了非常小的压控振荡器增益。     

Analysis and optimization of the impact of channel resistance on CMOS LNA noise performance

The intrinsic channel resistance, which is caused by the finite charging time of the carriers in the inversion layer, has remarkable impact on RF CMOS circuits, especially low noise amplifier (LNA), the first block of receiver. The impact of channel resistance on the noise performance of LNA is thoroughly studied and analyzed in this paper, and then new formulae are proposed systematically. Moreover, revised noise figure optimization technique is presented. All of this work will be very instructive for the design of high performance LNA.     

系统噪声和动态范围对激光束参数测量影响的分析

目前在激光束空域参数及传输因子的测量中，一般采用基于面阵ＣＣＤ的数字图像采集系统，本文应用计算机模拟仿真的手段，针对基模高斯光束和高阶厄米－高斯光束，分析了系统中的是电噪声和动态范围对激光束一阶四阶矩等空域参数以及Ｍ＾２因子测量精度的影响，提出了有效积分区域的概念，给出了实际工作中合理的积分范围，并通过大量的数据说明噪声和动态范围对光束测量精度影响不显著，为合理要求光电探测器和电路和系统的噪声性能     

标准CMOS工艺在高速模拟电路和数模混合电路中的应用展望

从速度、集成度、功耗和成本等几个方面深入的分析了利用标准CMOS工艺来设计开发高速模拟器件和混合处理芯片的现状及发展潜力。     

Size effect on the electrical conduction and noise of RuO2-based thick film resistors

Temperature dependence of sheet resistance for a generic RuO₂-based resistor with a composition of 20wt.% RuO₂-80wt.% glass (63wt.% PbO-25wt.% B₂O₃-12wt.% SiO₂) is evaluated. A combined tunnel/parallel conduction model is employed to describe the resistance behavior with respect to the temperature variation. The geometry of the resistive film, such as the aspect ratio and thickness, cast a significant effect on the electrical characteristic of the thick film assembly. It is observed that shorter resistive films exhibit smaller resistivity as compared to that of the longer film. Thinner resistive films have smaller resistivity as compared to the thicker ones. In addition,1/f noise is the dominating contribution in the thick film resistor. The presence of1/f noise can be qualitatively explained with the aid of the tunneling mechanism.     

Design of a three-stage ring-type voltage-controlled oscillator with a wide tuning range by controlling the current level in an embedded delay cell

This paper presents a new design for a three-stage voltage-controlled differential ring oscillator embedded with a delay cell for a wide tuning range from 59 MHz to 2.96 GHz by adjusting the current level in the delay cell. The ring oscillator consists of a voltage-to-current converter, coder circuit, three-stage ring with delay cells, and current monitoring circuit to extend the tuning range of the proposed voltage-controlled oscillator. Each functional block has been designed for a minimum power consumption using the TSMC 0.18 μm CMOS technology. We simulate the performances of the proposed voltage-controlled oscillator in terms of phase noise, power consumption, tuning range, and gain. Our simulation results show that the proposed oscillator has the linear frequency–voltage characteristics over a wide tuning range. At each tuning range (mode), the calculated phase noise of the proposed ring oscillator at each tuning range (mode) was −87, −85, −81, and −79 dBc/Hz at a 1 MHz offset from the center frequency. The DC power of the proposed voltage-controlled oscillator consumed 0.86–3 mW under a 1.8 V supply voltage.     

Impact of technology scaling on thermal behavior of leakage current in sub-quarter micron MOSFETs: perspective of low temperature current testing

The increase in the off-state current for sub-quarter micron CMOS technologies is making conventional I_DDQ testing ineffective. Since natural process variation together with low-V_TH devices can significantly increase the absolute leakage value and the variation, choosing a single threshold for I_DDQ testing is impractical. One of the potential solutions is the cooling of the chip during current testing. In this paper we analyze the impact of CMOS technology scaling on the thermal behavior of different leakage current mechanisms in n-MOSFETs and estimate the effectiveness of low temperature I_DDQ testing. We found that the conventional single threshold low temperature I_DDQ testing is not effective for sub-quarter micron CMOS technologies and propose the low temperature ΔI_DDQ test method. The difference between pass and fail current limits was estimated more than 200× for 0.13-μm CMOS technology.     

基于RTD与CMOS的新型数字电路设计

纳米电子器件RTD与CMOS电路结合,这种新型电路不仅保持了CMOS动态电路的所有优点,而且在工作速度、功耗、集成度以及电路噪声免疫性方面都得到了不同程度的改善和提高。文中对数字电路中比较典型的可编程逻辑门、全加器电路进行了设计与模拟,并在此基础上对4×4阵列纳米流水线乘法器进行了结构设计。同时讨论了在目前硅基RTD器件较低的PVCR值情况下实现相应电路的可行性。