A 52 GHz Phased-Array Receiver Front-End in 90 nm Digital CMOS

The commercial potential of the 60 GHz band, in combination with the scaling of CMOS, has resulted in a lot of plain digital CMOS circuits and systems for millimeter-wave application. This work presents a 90 nm digital CMOS two-path 52 GHz phased-array receiver, based on LO phase shifting. The system uses unmatched cascading of RF building blocks and features gain selection. A QVCO with a wide tuning range of 8 GHz is demonstrated. The receiver achieves 30 dB of maximum gain and 7.1 dB of minimum noise figure per path around 52 GHz, for a low area and power consumption of respectively 0.1 ${hbox{mm}}^{2}$ and 65 mW. The presented receiver targets 60 GHz communication where beamforming is required.      

A 24 GHz 6-Bit CMOS Phased-Array Receiver

This letter presents a 24 GHz 6 b phased-array receiver implemented in 0.13 mum CMOS. This design is based on a novel active vector generator that results in wideband quasi-quadrature vectors, which are used to synthesize the desired phase response. The active phase shifter has measured rms gain and phase errors of <0.5 dB and < 2.8deg at 23-24.4 GHz, resulting in a 6 b resolution. The phased-array receiver has a gain of 14 dB, a NF of 6 dB, a 3-dB gain bandwidth of 4.7 GHz and wideband input and output match. The chip consumes 30 mA from a 1.5 V supply with dimensions of 0.66 times 1.25 mm² including pads (0.5 times 1 mm² without pads).     

An X- and Ku-Band 8-Element Phased-Array Receiver in 0.18-$mu{hbox{m}}$ SiGe BiCMOS Technology

This paper demonstrates an 8-element phased array receiver in a standard 0.18-mum SiGe BiCMOS (1P6M, SiGe HBT f_t ap 150 GHz) technology for X- and Ku-band applications. The array receiver adopts the All-RF architecture, where the phase shifting and power combining are done at the RF level. With the integrations of all the digital control circuitry and ESD protection for all I/O pads, the receiver consumes a current of 100 ~ 200 m A from a 3.3 V supply voltage. The receiver shows 1.5 ~ 24.5 dB of power gain per channel from a 50 Omega load at 12 GHz with bias current control, and an associated NF of 4.2 dB (@ max. gain) to 13.2 dB (@ min. gain). The RMS gain error is < 0.9 dB and the RMS phase error is < 6deg at 6-18 GHz for all 4-bit phase states. The measured group delay is 162.5 plusmn 12.5 ps for all phase states at 6-18 GHz. The RMS phase mismatch and RMS gain mismatch among the eight channels are < 2.7deg and 0.4 dB, respectively, for all 16 phase states, over 6-18 GHz. The 8-element array can operate instantaneously at any center frequency and with a wide bandwidth (3 to 6 GHz, depending on the center frequency) given primarily by the 3 dB gain variation in the 6-18 GHz range. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of an All-RF phased array on a silicon chip with very low RMS phase and gain errors at 6-18 GHz. The chip size is 2.2 times 2.45 mm² including all pads.     

A $Q$ -Band Four-Element Phased-Array Front-End Receiver With Integrated Wilkinson Power Combiners in 0.18-$mu{{hbox{m}}}$ SiGe BiCMOS Technology

A four-element phased-array front-end receiver based on 4-bit RF phase shifters is demonstrated in a standard 0.18- $mu{{hbox{m}}}$ SiGe BiCMOS technology for $Q$-band (30–50 GHz) satellite communications and radar applications. The phased-array receiver uses a corporate-feed approach with on-chip Wilkinson power combiners, and shows a power gain of 10.4 dB with an ${rm IIP}_{3}$ of $-$13.8 dBm per element at 38.5 GHz and a 3-dB gain bandwidth of 32.8–44 GHz. The rms gain and phase errors are $leq$1.2 dB and $leq {hbox{8.7}}^{circ}$ for all 4-bit phase states at 30–50 GHz. The beamformer also results in $leq$ 0.4 dB of rms gain mismatch and $leq {hbox{2}}^{circ}$ of rms phase mismatch between the four channels. The channel-to-channel isolation is better than $-$35 dB at 30–50 GHz. The chip consumes 118 mA from a 5-V supply voltage and overall chip size is ${hbox{1.4}}times {hbox{1.7}} {{hbox{mm}}}^{2}$ including all pads and CMOS control electronics.      

A Millimeter-Wave (40–45 GHz) 16-Element Phased-Array Transmitter in 0.18-$mu$ m SiGe BiCMOS Technology

This paper demonstrates a 16-element phased-array transmitter in a standard 0.18-mum SiGe BiCMOS technology for Q-band satellite applications. The transmitter array is based on the all-RF architecture with 4-bit RF phase shifters and a corporate-feed network. A 1:2 active divider and two 1:8 passive tee-junction dividers constitute the corporate-feed network, and three-dimensional shielded transmission-lines are used for the passive divider to minimize area. All signals are processed differentially inside the chip except for the input and output interfaces. The phased-array transmitter results in a 12.5 dB of average power gain per channel at 42.5 GHz with a 3-dB gain bandwidth of 39.9-45.6 GHz. The RMS gain variation is < 1.3 dB and the RMS phase variation is < for all 4-bit phase states at 35-50 GHz. The measured input and output return losses are < -10 dB at 36.6-50 GHz, and <-10 dB at 37.6-50 GHz, respectively. The measured peak-to-peak group delay variation is plusmn 20 ps at 40-45 GHz. The output P_-1dB is -5plusmn1.5 dBm and the maximum saturated output power is - 2.5plusmn1.5 dBm per channel at 42.5 GHz. The transmitter shows <1.8 dB of RMS gain mismatch and < 7deg of RMS phase mismatch between the 16 different channels over all phase states. A - 30 dB worst-case port-to-port coupling is measured between adjacent channels at 30-50 GHz, and the measured RMS gain and phase disturbances due to the inter-channel coupling are < 0.15 dB and < 1deg, respectively, at 35-50 GHz. All measurements are obtained without any on-chip calibration. The chip consumes 720 mA from a 5 V supply voltage and the chip size is 2.6times3.2 mm².     

An 800-MHz–6-GHz Software-Defined Wireless Receiver in 90-nm CMOS

A software-defined radio receiver is designed from a low-power ADC perspective, exploiting programmability of windowed integration sampler and clock-programmable discrete-time analog filters. To cover the major frequency bands in use today, a wideband RF front-end, including the low-noise amplifier (LNA) and a wide tuning-range synthesizer, spanning over 800 MHz to 6 GHz is designed. The wideband LNA provides 18-20 dB of maximum gain and 3-3.5 dB of noise figure over 800 MHz to 6 GHz. A low 1/f noise and high-linearity mixer is designed which utilizes the passive mixer core properties and provides around +70 dBm IIP2 over the bandwidth of operation. The entire receiver circuits are implemented in 90-nm CMOS technology. Programmability of the receiver is tested for GSM and 802.11g standards     

A 26–38 GHz Monolithic Doubly Balanced Mixer

A novel configuration of doubly balanced mixer is presented for operating over the 26–38 GHz band. The monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) was implemented by GaAs 0.15 $mu$ m pHEMT technology with the compact size of 1 $,times,$2.5 mm $^{2}$. A 180 $^circ$ hybrid circuit and two identical Marchand baluns were employed to achieve good port-to-port isolation. They also have wide band performance, make the mixer more compact, and simplify IF extraction. This mixer has a conversion loss of better than 6 dB, a dc-10 GHz IF bandwidth, and the LO-to-RF and LO-to-IF isolations are better than 20 dB and 29 dB, respectively.      

A Fully Integrated 60GHz Four Channel CMOS Receiver with 7GHz Ultra-Wide Bandwidth for IEEE 802.11ad Standard

In this paper, a fully integrated CMOS receiver frontend for high-speed short range wireless applications centering at 60GHz millimeter wave （mmW） band is designed and implemented in 90nm CMOS technology. The 60GHz receiver is designed based on the super-heterodyne architecture consisting of a low noise amplifier （LNA） with inter-stage peaking technique, a single- balanced RF mixer, an IF amplifier, and a double-balanced I/Q down-conversion IF mixer. The proposed 60GHz receiver frontend derives from the sliding-IF structure and is designed with 7GHz ultra-wide bandwidth around 60GHz, supporting four 2.16GHz receiving channels from IEEE 802.1lad standard for next generation high speed Wi- Fi applications. Measured results show that the entire receiver achieves a peak gain of 12dB and an input 1-dB compression point of -14.SdBm, with a noise figure of lower than 7dB, while consumes a total DC current of only 60mA from a 1.2V voltage supply.     

A fully integrated 24-GHz phased-array transmitter in CMOS

This paper presents the first fully integrated 24-GHz phased-array transmitter designed using 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS transistors. The four-element array includes four on-chip CMOS power amplifiers, with outputs matched to 50 /spl Omega/, that are each capable of generating up to 14.5 dBm of output power at 24 GHz. The heterodyne transmitter has a two-step quadrature up-conversion architecture with local oscillator (LO) frequencies of 4.8 and 19.2 GHz, which are generated by an on-chip frequency synthesizer. Four-bit LO path phase shifting is implemented in each element at 19.2 GHz, and the transmitter achieves a peak-to- ratio of 23 dB with raw beam-steering resolution of 7/spl deg/ for radiation normal to the array. The transmitter can support data rates of 500 Mb/s on each channel (with BPSK modulation) and occupies 6.8 mm /spl times/ 2.1 mm of die area.     

A Zero-IF 60 GHz 65 nm CMOS Transceiver With Direct BPSK Modulation Demonstrating up to 6 Gb/s Data Rates Over a 2 m Wireless Link

This paper presents a directly modulated, 60 GHz zero-IF transceiver architecture suitable for single-carrier, low-power, multi-gigabit wireless links in nanoscale CMOS technologies. This mm-wave front end architecture requires no upconversion of the baseband signals in the transmitter and no analog-to-digital conversion in the receiver, thus minimizing system complexity and power consumption. All circuit blocks are realized using sub-1.0 V topologies, that feature only a single high-frequency transistor between the supply and ground, and which are scalable to future 45 nm, 32 nm, and 22 nm CMOS nodes. The transceiver is fabricated in a 65 nm CMOS process with a digital back-end. It includes a receiver with 14.7 dB gain and 5.6 dB noise figure, a 60 GHz LO distribution tree, a 69 GHz static frequency divider, and a direct BPSK modulator operating over the 55–65 GHz band at data rates exceeding 6 Gb/s. With both the transmitter and the receiver turned on, the chip consumes 374 mW from 1.2 V which reduces to 232 mW for a 1.0 V supply. It occupies 1.28$,times,$0.81 mm$^{2}$. The transceiver and its building blocks were characterized over temperature up to 85$^{circ}$ C and for power supplies down to 1 V. A manufacturability study of 60 GHz radio circuits is presented with measurements of transistors, the low-noise amplifier, and the receiver on slow, typical, and fast process splits. The transceiver architecture and performance were validated in a 1–6 Gb/s 2-meter wireless transmit-receive link over the 55–64 GHz range.      

A 10- to 21-GHz, low-cost, multifrequency, and full-duplexphased-array antenna system

This paper presents a novel phased-array antenna system with multifrequency, full-duplex operation, and wide-beam scanning. The system consists of a wideband power divider, a low-loss and low-cost multiline phase shifter controlled by dual piezoelectric transducers (PETS), a four-channel multiplexer, microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) amplifiers, and a stripline-fed Vivaldi antenna array. The multiline PET phase shifter has a low perturbation loss of less than 2 dB and a total loss of less than 4 dB up to 40 GHz, with a maximum phase shift of 650°. Using dual-aligned PETS for bidirectional phase shifting results in wide scan angles of 38.6°, 37.6°, 43°, and 40° for the four channels at 10, 12, 19, and 21 GHz, respectively. The four-channel diplexer demonstrates low insertion loss with high isolation between channels. The new multifrequency phased-array system provides wide-beam scanning and full-duplex capability using a simple, low-cost architecture. The system can be used for applications in mobile satellite communications     

A Silicon-Germanium Receiver for X-Band Transmit/Receive Radar Modules

This work investigates the potential of commercially-available silicon-germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS technology for X-band transmit/receive (T/R) radar modules, focusing on the receiver section of the module. A 5-bit receiver operating from 8 to 10.7 GHz is presented, demonstrating a gain of 11 dB, and average noise figure of 4.1 dB, and an input-referred third-order intercept point $({hbox{IIP}}_{3})$ of $-$13 dBm, while only dissipating 33 mW of power. The receiver is capable of providing 32 distinct phase states from 0 to 360$^{circ}$ , with an rms phase error $≪ !{hbox{9}}^{circ}$ and an rms gain error $≪ ,$0.6 dB. This level of circuit performance and integration capability demonstrates the benefits of SiGe BiCMOS technology for emerging radar applications, making it an excellent candidate for integrated X-band phased-array radar transmit/receive modules.      

Single-Chip W-band SiGe HBT Transceivers and Receivers for Doppler Radar and Millimeter-Wave Imaging

This paper presents the first single-chip direct-conversion 77-85 GHz transceiver fabricated in SiGe HBT technology, intended for Doppler radar and millimeter-wave imaging, particularly within the automotive radar band of 77-81 GHz. A 1.3 mm times 0.9 mm 86-96 GHz receiver is also presented. The transceiver, fabricated in a 130 nm SiGe HBT technology with f_T/f_MAX of 230/300 GHz, consumes 780 mW, and occupies 1.3 mm times 0.9 mm of die area. Furthermore, it achieves 40 dB conversion gain in the receiver at 82 GHz, a 3 dB bandwidth extending from 77 to 85 GHz at 25degC, and covering the entire 77-81 GHz band up to 100degC, record 3.85 dB DSB noise figure measured at 82 GHz LO and 1 GHz IF, and an IP_1dB of -35 dBm. The transmitter provides + 11.5 dBm of saturated output power at 77 GHz, and a divide64 static frequency divider is included on-die. Successful detection of a Doppler shift of 30 Hz at a range of 6 m is shown. The 86-96 GHz receiver achieves 31 dB conversion gain, a 3 dB bandwidth of 10 GHz, and 5.2 dB DSB noise figure at 96 GHz LO and 1 GHz IF, and -99 dBc/Hz phase noise at 1 MHz offset. System-level layout and integration techniques that address the challenges of low-voltage transceiver implementation are also discussed.     

1.5-6GHz增益和噪声系数稳定的两级超宽带CMOS低噪声放大器设计与性能模拟

 针对UWB应用设计实现了一个1.5-6GHz的两级CMOS低噪声放大器(LNA). 通过引入共栅(CG)和共源(CS)结构以获得宽范围内的输入匹配,采用电流镜和峰化电感进行电流复用,所提出的LNA实现了非常平坦化的功率增益和噪声系数(NF). 经标准0.18μm CMOS工艺实现后,版图后模拟结果表明在1.5-5GHz频率范围内功率增益(S21)为11.45±0.05dB,在2-6GHz频率范围内噪声系数(NF)为5.15±0.05dB,输入损耗(S11)小于-18dB. 在5GHz时,模拟得到的三阶交调点(IIP3)为-7dBm,1dB压缩点为-5dBm.在1.8V电源电压下,LNA消耗6mA的电流,版图实现面积仅为0.62mm^2.     

A 60-GHz Phased Array Receiver Front-End in 0.13-$mu {hbox{m}}$ CMOS Technology

This paper presents a fully integrated dual-antenna phased-array RF front-end receiver architecture for 60-GHz broadband wireless applications. It contains two differential receiver chains, each receiver path consists of an on-chip balun, ag_m-boosted current-reuse low-noise amplifier (LNA), a sub-harmonic dual-gate down-conversion mixer, an IF mixer, and a baseband gain stage. An active all-pass filter is employed to adjust the phase shift of each LO signal. Associated with the proposed dual conversion topology, the phase shift of the LO signal can be scaled to one-third. Differential circuitry is adopted to achieve good common-mode rejection. The g_m-boosted current-reuse differential LNA mitigates the noise, gain, robustness, stability, and integration challenges. The sub-harmonic dual-gate down-conversion mixer prevents the third harmonic issue in LO as well. Realized in a 0.13-mum 1P8M RF CMOS technology, the chip occupies an active area of 1.1 times 1.2 mm². The measured conversion gain and input P1 dB of the single receiver path are 30 dB and -27 dBm , respectively. The measured noise figure at 100 MHz baseband output is around 10 dB. The measured phased array in the receiver achieves a total gain of 34.5 dB and theoretically improves the receiver SNR by 4.5 dB. The proposed 60 GHz receiver dissipates 44 mW from a 1.2 V supply voltage. The whole two-channel receiver, including the vector modulator circuits for built-in testing, consumes 93 mW from a 1.2 V supply voltage.     

A 2.1-6 GHz SiGe BiCMOS low-noise amplifier design for a multi-mode wideband receiver

A wideband low-noise amplifier (LNA) with ESD protection for a multi-mode receiver is presented.The LNA is fabricated in a 0.18-μm SiGe BiCMOS process,covering the 2.1 to 6 GHz frequency band.After optimized noise modeling and circuit design,the measured results show that the LNA has a 12 dB gain over the entire bandwidth,the input third intercept point (IIP3) is -8 dBm at 6 GHz,and the noise figure is from 2.3 to 3.8 dB in the operating band.The overall power consumption is 8 mW at 2.5 V voltage supply.     

An 11-Bit 8.6 GHz Direct Digital Synthesizer MMIC With 10-Bit Segmented Sine-Weighted DAC

This paper presents a low power, ultrahigh-speed and high resolution SiGe DDS MMIC with 11-bit phase and 10-bit amplitude resolutions. Using more than twenty thousand transistors, including an 11-bit pipeline accumulator, a 6-bit coarse sine-weighted DAC and eight 3-bit fine sine-weighted DACs, the core area of the DDS is 3$,times,$ 2.5 mm$^2$ . The maximum clock frequency was measured at 8.6 GHz with a 4.2958 GHz output. The DDS consumes 4.8 W of power using a single 3.3 V power supply. It achieves the best reported phase and amplitude resolutions, as well as a leading power efficiency figure-of-merit (FOM) of 81.1 $~$GHz$cdot$2$^{{rm SFDR}/6}$/W in the mm-wave DDS design. The measured spurious-free-dynamic-range (SFDR) is approximately 45 dBc with a 4.2958 GHz Nyquist output, and 50 dBc with a 4.2 MHz output in the Nyquist band at the maximum clock frequency of 8.6 GHz. Under a 7.2 GHz clock input, the worst-case Nyquist band SFDR and narrow band SFDR are measured as 33 dBc and 42 dBc respectively. The measured phase noise with an output frequency of 1.57 GHz is ${-}$ 118.55 dBc/Hz at a 10 kHz frequency offset with a 7.2 GHz clock input generated from an Agilent E8257D analog signal generator. All the measurements were taken with the chips bonded in a CLCC-52 package.      

Monolithic InGaP-GaAs HBT receiver front-end with 6 mW DC power consumption for 5 GHz band WLAN applications

A very low power consumption (6 mW) 5 GHz band receiver front-end using InGaP-GaAs HBT technology is reported. The receiver front-end is composed of a cascode low noise amplifier followed by a double-balanced mixer with the RF transconductor stage placed above the Gilbert quad for direct-coupled connection. The RF band of this receiver front-end is set to be 5.2 GHz, being downconverted to 1 GHz IF frequency. Input-return-loss (S/sub 11/) in RF port smaller than -12 dB and excellent power-conversion-gain of 35.4 dB are achieved. Input 1 dB compression point (P/sub 1dB/) and input third-order intercept point (IIP3) of -24 and -3 dBm, respectively, are also achieved.     

A fully integrated 0.5-5.5 GHz CMOS distributed amplifier

A fully integrated 0.5-5.5-GHz CMOS-distributed amplifier is presented. The amplifier is a four stage design fabricated in a standard 0.6-μm three-layer metal digital-CMOS process. The amplifier has a unity-gain cutoff frequency of 5.5 GHz, and a gain of 6.5 dB, with a gain flatness of ±1.2 dB over the 0.5-4 GHz band. Input and output are matched to 50 Ω, with worst-case return losses on the input and output of -7 and -10 dB, respectively. Power dissipation is 83.4 mW from a 3.0 V supply, input-referred 1-dB compression point varies from +6 dBm at 1 GHz to 8.8 dBm at 5 GHz. From a circuit standpoint, the fully integrated nature of the amplifier on the given substrate results in a heavily parasitic-laden design. Discussion emphasis is therefore placed on the practical design, modeling, and CAD optimization techniques used in the design process     

Slot-Coupled Multisection Quadrature Hybrid for UWB Applications

We present a three-section quadrature hybrid based on slot-coupled directional couplers, which operates over a bandwidth from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz. A prototype has been fabricated which exhibits a return loss better than 20 dB, isolation around 20 dB, an amplitude imbalance between output ports of less than $pm 0.75$ dB and a phase imbalance between $+1^{circ}$ and $-3^{circ}$ across the 3.1–10.6 GHz band. This design outperforms previously reported results for ultra wide band operation.