RF and mm-Wave Monolithic Integrated Circuits for Wireless Communications - Reza Nikandish

#mm-Wave #IC #RF

Abstract: There is an ever-increasing demand to enhance wireless communication systems to transmit/receive signals with higher quality, data-rates, and energy efficiency. This imposes stringent requirements on bandwidth, efficiency, linearity, and noise of their circuit components. Currently, different semiconductor technologies including bulk CMOS, SOI, SiGe, GaAs, and GaN, are used to implement circuit components for specific application scenarios and target performance. In this presentation, we present our recent research developments on RF and mm-wave monolithic integrated circuits for wireless communications. The main circuits include power amplifiers (PAs), broadband amplifiers, distributed amplifiers, low-noise amplifiers, and multi-band amplifiers, which are implemented in GaN and GaAs processes. We present broadband multi-watt RF PAs, concurrent dual-band RF and mm-wave amplifier, and a broadband mm-wave amplifier using transformer-feedback bandwidth enhancement. Furthermore, distributed amplifiers with over 40 GHz bandwidth are presented, which include an architecture using transformer coupling between its input and output transmission lines and a tapered distributed LNA with optimal tapering factors to improve average noise figure. We develop a PA circuit with an embedded minimum-inductance bandpass filter (BPF) to achieve broadband high efficiency and high harmonic suppression. Finally, the unbalanced PA architecture is proposed to achieve back-off efficiency enhancement over a wide bandwidth.