Low-power and low NF V-band down-converter in 0.13 μm CMOS

A V-band down-converter integrating a LNA and mixer in 0.13 mm CMOS technology is presented. The LNA has a current re-use topology for low power consumption. The transistor size of the LNA is optimised by the substrate noise for the low noise figure (NF) and f_max for high gain performance. The new resistive mixer for low LO power operation is proposed. The NF of the down-converter is 4.7 dB. The conversion gain and input P_1dB are 0.67 dB and 212.5 dBm, respectively. The proposed circuit, consuming only 11.6 mW, shows the lowest NF and highest linearity among V-band down-converters.     

30 GHz transformer-coupled and reused injection-locked VCO/divider in 0.13 μm CMOS process

A 30 GHz VCO, using a transformer as the tank load and inter-stage coupling of the divider, is proposed such that the inductive load of the buffer between the VCO and the divider is eliminated and therefore chip area and power consumption can be reduced. The transformer is further reused by feedback to enhance the output swing of the VCO. Phase noise performance of the VCO can also be improved by the injection-lock mechanism from the reverse coupling of the divider. Measured results show that output phase noises of the VCO with (without) the divider are -125.1 (-118.6) dBc/Hz at 10 MHz offset frequencies from around 29.2 GHz carrier frequency. The power consumption of the VCO alone is 2.32 mW, while that of the VCO/divider increases only to 4.65 mW.     

0.5-25 GHz inductorless single-ended resistive mixer in 0.13 μm CMOS

A wideband inductorless resistive down-conversion mixer in 0.13 μm CMOS technology is presented. The mixer provides a conversion loss of 9?11.7 dB over a frequency range of 0.5?25 GHz at LO power of 6 dBm. The circuit exhibits an input-referred 1 dB compression point and IIP3 of 4.7 and 11.5 dBm, respectively. The mixer consumes only 0.2 mA from 1.5 V for biasing. The isolation between the ports is higher than 10 dB for the whole frequency range. The circuit is realised without inductors, thus offering very wide bandwidth. The chip size including the pads is 0.23 mm², and the circuit active area is only 0.014 mm².     

Relative intensity noise measurements of 5 μm quantum cascade laser and 1.55 μm semiconductor laser

The magnitude of the relative intensity noise (RIN) of a 5 mum distributed-feedback quantum cascade laser (DFB-QCL) was compared with a conventional 1.55 mum DFB laser diode (LD). The RIN for the DFB-QCL at a frequency of 1 MHz was 157 dBm at 10 mW light output, about 5 dB higher than that of the DFB-LD, which could almost be fully explained by the semi-classical noise model. The resonant tunnelling induced noise, which might be a cause of the RIN degradation, was not observed.     

一种Ka波段低相噪GaAs HBT压控振荡器

本文研究了一种采用GaAs HBT工艺实现的工作在Ka波段的压控振荡器。该振荡器采用共射级组态和对称式电容电感谐振腔结构以降低其相位噪声,采用π型反馈网络补偿180°相移。在片测试结果表明：偏离中心频率1 MHz处相位噪声为-96.47dBc/Hz,调谐范围为28.312到28.695GHz,在-6V电源电压下该振荡器直流功耗为18mA,振荡器芯片面积为0.7mm×0.7mm。     

A 5-GHz low phase noise differential colpitts CMOS VCO

A low noise 5-GHz differential Colpitts CMOS voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) is proposed in this letter. The Colpitts VCO core adopts only PMOS in a 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS technology to achieve a better phase noise performance since PMOS has lower 1/f noise than NMOS. The VCO operates from 4.61 to 5 GHz with 8.3% tuning range. The measured phase noise at 1-MHz offset is -120.42 dBc/Hz at 5 GHz and -120.99 dBc/Hz at 4.61 GHz. The power consumption of the VCO core is only 3 mW. To the authors' knowledge, this differential Colpitts CMOS VCO achieves the best figure of merit (FOM) of 189.6 dB at 5-GHz band.     

Theoretical analysis of low phase noise design of CMOS VCO

A theoretical analysis on low phase noise of voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) based on complementary cross-coupled LC VCO by 0.35-/spl mu/m complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology is demonstrated. From the procedure of optimization steps, the excess noise factor of the amplifier coming from the active device has been determined. The proposed VCO operates at 2 GHz with phase noise of -116 dBc/Hz at offset frequency 600 kHz. The power consumption is 22.62 mW under 3 V bias with 9.1% frequency tuning. The achievement of low phase noise is also matched with prediction by formula in the frequency domain.     

192 GHz push-push VCO in 0.13 /spl mu/m CMOS

A 192 GHz cross-coupled push-push voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) is fabricated using the UMC 0.13 /spl mu/m CMOS logic process. The VCO can be tuned from 191.4 to 192.7 GHz. The VCO provides output power of /spl sim/-20 dBm and phase noise of /spl sim/-100 dBc/Hz at 10 MHz offset, while consuming 11 mA from a 1.5 V supply.     

A novel complementary Colpitts differential CMOS VCO with low phase noise performance

A low phase noise Ka-band CMOS voltage-controlled oscillator is proposed in this paper. A new complementary Colpitts structure was adopted in a 0.18-μm CMOS process to achieve differential-ended outputs, low phase-noise performance, and low-power consumption. The designed VCO oscillates from 29.8 to 30 GHz with 200 MHz tuning range. The measured phase noise at 1-MHz offset is −109 dBc/Hz at 30 GHz and −105.5 dBc/Hz at 29.8 GHz. The power consumption of VCO is only 27 mW. In addition, compared with the published papers, the proposed CMOS VCO achieves the best figure of merit (FOM) of −185 dB at 29.95-GHz band.     

Design of UWB switched gain controlled LNA using 0.18 μm CMOS

A switched gain controlled low noise amplifier (LNA) for the 3.1- 4.8 GHz ultra-wideband system is presented. The LNA is fabricated with the 0.18 mum 1P6M standard CMOS process. Measurement of the LNA was performed using an RF probe station. In gain mode, measured results show a noise figure of 4.68-4.97 dB, gain of 12.5-13.9 dB, and input/output return loss higher than 10/8.2 dB. The input IP3 (IIP3) at 4.1 GHz is 1 dBm, and consumes 14.6 mW of power. In bypass mode, measured results show a gain of-7.0 to -8.7 dB, and input/output return loss higher than 10/6.3 dB. The input IP3 at 4.1 GHz is 9.2 dBm, and consumes 1 muW of power.     

Inductorless AGC amplifier for 10GBase-LX4 ethernet in 0.18 μm CMOS

A new differential automatic gain control post-amplifier for 10GBase-LX4 Ethernet realised in a 0.18 mum CMOS process is presented. Based on a very compact inductorless design, it comprises three cascaded digitally programmable gain stages followed by a bandwidth-enhancement buffer. Results show an overall -3 dB cutoff frequency above 3 GHz over a - 3 to 33 dB linear-in-dB controllable gain range in 6 dB steps with 55 mW power consumption from a 1.8 V single supply.     

Full range voltage-controlled ring oscillator in 0.18μm CMOS for low-voltage operation

A new differential delay cell with a complementary current control to increase the control voltage range as well as the operation frequency is proposed for low-voltage operation. The new differential delay cell is employed in a four-stage voltage-controlled ring oscillator (VCRO). The VCRO is implemented using 0.18 m 1P6M CMOS process and 1.8 V supply voltage. Measured results show that a wide operation frequency range from 5.36 to 3.03 GHz is achieved for the full range control voltage from 0 to 1.8 V. Measured phase noise is 107 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset from the 5.22 GHz centre frequency.     

Fully integrated concurrent dual-band low noise amplifier with suspended inductors in SiGe 0.35 μm BiCMOS technology

A fully integrated concurrent dual-band low noise amplifier with suspended inductors is reported. Wideband input impedance matching and wideband low noise characteristics are achieved by the proposed capacitive feedback technique simultaneously. Measurement results show input return losses of -12.8 and -11.5 dB, voltage gains of 14.4 and 14.3 dB, and noise figures of 2.5 and 3.0 measured at 2.3 and 4.5 GHz, respectively, with an image rejection ratio of 26.1 dB and power consumption of 11.9 mW.     

A 1.8-GHz injection-locked quadrature CMOS VCO with low phase noise and high phase accuracy

Injection-locked quadrature voltage-controlled oscillators are introduced in this paper as high accuracy, low phase noise, and low-power I and Q generators. A master voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), running at twice the output frequency, locks two coupled VCOs. The former determines phase noise while the latter sets phase accuracy, thus, breaking the tradeoff between the two parameters, the main limit of free running coupled VCOs, recently proposed in the framework of highly integrated solutions. The proposed design has been tailored to DCS 1800 and prototypes have been fabricated in a 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS technology. Experiments show a phase noise of -127 dBc/Hz and -139 dBc/Hz at 600 kHz and 3 MHz, respectively, while consuming 10 mA from 1.8 V supply. A 185-dB state-of-the-art phase noise figure of merit results. Accuracy between output signals is determined by means of image band rejection (IBR) measurements on a purposely developed single-side-band upconversion mixer. Minimum IBR among 20 samples is as large as 46 dB.     

X波段低相噪VCO设计

从HJFET的物理模型出发，提出了反沟道HJFET的电路模型，分析其等效电路，并在此基础上设计并制作了一个反沟道振荡器。     

A miniature Q-band low noise amplifier using 0.13-/spl mu/m CMOS technology

A miniature Q-band low noise amplifier (LNA) using 0.13-/spl mu/m standard mixed signal/radio frequency complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology is presented in this letter. This three-stage common source thin-film microstrip LNA achieves a peak gain of 20dB at 43GHz with a compact chip size of 0.525mm/sup 2/. The 3-dB frequency bandwidth ranges from 34 to 44GHz and the minimum noise figure is 6.3dB at 41GHz. The LNA outperforms all the reported commercial standard CMOS Q-band LNAs, with the highest gain, highest output IP3, and smallest chip size.     

Mid-infrared GaSb-based EP-VCSELl emitting at 2.63 μm

Electrically-pumped GaSb-based vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers emitting up to 2.63 μm at room temperature are reported. The whole structure was grown monolithically in one run by solid-source molecular beam epitaxy. This heterostructure is composed of two n-doped AlAsSb/GaSb DBRs, a type-I GaInAsSb/AlGaAsSb multiquantum- well active region and an InAsSb/GaSb tunnel junction. A quasi-CW (1 μs, 5 %) operation was obtained at room temperature for 35 μm-diameter devices with threshold current of 85 mA.     

GaSb-based monolithic EP-VCSEL emitting above 2.5 μm

The 2 to 3 mm mid-infrared wavelength range is a wellknown transparence window of the atmosphere which contains absorbing lines of numerous polluting gases such as CO, CH/sub 4/, NH/sub 3/ and HF. Currently, one of the more precise gas sensing techniques is tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) which measures the absorption of a singlemode laser beam to detect the presence or not of absorbing gases. The realisation of a highly precise trace-gas TDLAS sensing system thus implies the development of specific laser sources exhibiting adapted properties. Electrically-pumped vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (EP-VCSELs) appear particularly well suited to be such laser sources owing to several advantages they offer such as small beam divergence, singlemode operation, fast and far wavelength tunability without mode hops, low threshold, high rate of modulation and less susceptibility to optical feedback [1, 2]. To date, Sb-based heterostructures allow coverage of a major part of the 2 to 4 mm mid-infrared wavelength [3] range. Moreover, recent progress on RT electrically-pumped GaSb-based VCSELs emitting up to 2.3 mm were obtained [4, 5]. However, this wavelength of emission remains the longest ever reported fromany semiconductor EP-VCSELs. In this Letter, the first result of an all-epitaxial monolithic EP-VCSEL emitting at 2.52 mm in quasi-CWregime at room temperature is described.