A 43–97-GHz Mixer-First Front-End With Quadrature Input Matching and On-Chip Image Rejection

Ahmed, Amr; Huang, Min-Yu; Munzer, David; Wang, Hua

doi:10.1109/jssc.2020.3045046

Cited by 21 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Virtually all of the standalone passive mixers shown are pumped by an external RF source that delivers a sinusoidal signal, which clearly does not optimize linearity. Moreover, passive mixers are more often embedded in much larger works with the recent technological nodes [99,100]. A passive mixer comes in different forms depending on whether a power, voltage, or current transfer is desired.…”

Section: Mixersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Voltage and current switching mixers (i.e., driven by an LO square voltage) intend to solve this problem but are typically integrated into front-ends that provide the required set of impedances to the RF and IF ends of the mixer as well as a square voltage to the LO end. It is then difficult to retrieve the performance of the mixer alone [99][100][101]. However, the best OCPs shown in Figure 20 among passive mixers (−2 and −3 dBm) are attributed to two voltage passive mixers [102,103] loaded by high input impedance unity-gain source followers.…”

Section: Mixersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evolution Trends and Paradigms of Low Noise Frequency Synthesis and Signal Conversion Using Silicon Technologies

2022

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Silicon technologies for HF applications have been proven for more than two decades, and technologies have greatly evolved. Whether CMOS or BiCMOS technologies, the unique combination of radio frequency, baseband, and digital functions allow a very high level of integration. While it is possible to achieve fully integrated transceivers, the major advantages of these silicon technologies lie mainly in their unparalleled performance in the field of frequency synthesis and frequency conversion. We propose in this paper a review of the major results obtained on these RF components since the beginning of the 2000s, also considering the impact of the technology node. The back-end of line (BEOL) process on which depends the quality of microwave monolithic integrated circuits (MMICs) is briefly presented in the introductory part. If circuit performances are tightly bound to the active devices (i.e., the heterojunction bipolar transistor SiGe HBT or CMOS transistor), passive elements (i.e., quality factor of inductors and varactors, losses of transmission, or interconnection lines) as well as the definition of the substrate also play a major role. The core of the article is oriented toward the noise of synthesized signals and frequency conversion. Frequency synthesis is presented through the analog design of a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) or through the direct digital frequency synthesis (DDFS), for which respective figures of merit are presented and discussed in a second section. The spectral purity of the oscillators being decisive in the definition of the throughput of a link is approached through the comparison of different figures of merit (FoM) for a set of circuits achievements over the selected period. If the realization of free oscillators is closely bound to the phase-locked loop (PLL)-type control loop for VCOs, the DDFS solution provides more direct and more flexible alternative at first sight. Therefore, these two solutions are analyzed collectively. Finally, the oscillator integrated in the transmitter or receiver supplies the needed LO (local oscillator) power to the frequency mixer in the frequency conversion module: henceforth, the third part of this study focuses on high-frequency mixer realizations. We thus consider this LO power in some advanced figure of merit mentioned in the second section. The design trade-off of the mixer is presented in an approach combining LO (conversion gain, channel isolation, and phase noise) and RF (HF noise figure and channel isolation) constraints. The final section provides a summary of the results and trends mentioned in the paper.

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Section: Mixersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mixersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution Trends and Paradigms of Low Noise Frequency Synthesis and Signal Conversion Using Silicon Technologies

2022

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“…A large commercial market exists for SOI-based RF switches that are used in front-end filter banks and transmit/receive switches where they operate in quasi-static modes and fast switching is not required. High switching speed is necessary for microwave/millimeter-wave mixers [3]- [11], high dynamic range sample and hold [12], [13], or other emerging RF C. Hill, and J.F. Buckwalter are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93117 USA (email: cameron hill@ucsb.edu, buckwalter@ece.ucsb.edu)…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Broadband, High-Linearity Switches for Millimeter-Wave Mixers Using Scaled SOI CMOS

Hill

Buckwalter

2022

IEEE Open J. Solid-State Circuits Soc.

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This work demonstrates new circuit techniques in distributed-stacked-complimentary (DiSCo) switches that enable picosecond switching speed in RF CMOS SOI switches. By using series-stacked devices with optimized gate impedance and voltage swing, both high linearity and fast switching are possible. A theoretical analysis and design framework has been developed and verified through simulation and measurement through two broadband, high-linearity passive mixer designs, one optimized for linearity and the other for bandwidth, using a 45-nm SOI CMOS process. The mixers achieve P 1dB s of 16-22 dBm with IIP 3s of 25-34 dBm across a bandwidth from 1 GHz up to 30 GHz. This performance exceeds prior SOI RF and microwave mixer performance by more than an order of magnitude and is comparable to III-V device technologies. The mixers include integrated local oscillator (LO) driving amplifiers for high efficiency operation and low total power consumption. DC power consumption ranges from 250 mW to 1 W for the LO driver. The integrated LO drivers demonstrate a pathway to on-chip LO generation with simplified matching to maximize LO power delivered to the input of the switch.

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“…Recent designs also show that mixer-first RXs can be extended to wideband high mm-Wave frequencies [45][46][47].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Compact CMOS Broadband Bidirectional Digital Transceiver Frontend With Capacitor Bank and Transformer Matching Network Reuse

et al. 2022

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This article presents a fully integrated bidirectional class-G digital Doherty switched capacitor transmitter (TX) and N-path Quadrature receiver (RX) in CMOS. Through sharing on-chip capacitor banks, typically occupying a major portion of the digital TX or RX chip area, as well as the RF passive matching networks, the overall size can be radically reduced. Moreover, the overall performance could be further improved by eliminating the need for an integrated T/RX switch and its corresponding loss and area overhead. The class-G operation is used within the Doherty TX to increase the output power and backoff efficiency, while the capacitive stacking technique is used in the RX to increase the voltage gain. A transformer network is used to present the optimum impedance for both the parallel Doherty TX and RX mode of operation, as well as the class-G Doherty active load modulation. As a proof-of-concept, the joint bidirectional class-G digital Doherty switched-capacitor TX and N-path Quadrature RX through capacitor bank sharing is implemented in a 45-nm CMOS SOI process. The TX demonstrates a Pout 1dB bandwidth (BW) of 1.6-3.1 GHz, a fractional BW >63%, and peak output power (Pout) of 22.5dBm at 2.4GHz. The peak drain efficiency (DE) of the TX is 49.5% at 1.8GHz and 41.5%/38.7%/31.6%/18.1% for the peak/2.5/6/12dB power back off (PBO) at 2.4GHz. The DE improvement compared to class-B PA is 1.24×/1.51×/1.72× at 2.5/6/12dB PBO. The TX is measured using 64-QAM/20MHz modulation without the use of AM-PM pre-distortion or pattern based DPD. It achieves an excellent -27.1dB EVM, -31.31dBc ACLR, 14.6dBm average Pout and 25.8% average DE at 1.6GHz. The RX achieves a noise figure (NF) of 7.6dB at 2.2GHz and a conversion gain of 17dB with a 12 MHz bandwidth. In addition, the proposed RX front-end achieves < -60 dBm LO leakage over the operating frequency range INDEX TERMS capacitor stacking, class-G DPA, CMOS, digital front-end, Doherty, linearity, N-path filter, polar modulation, power back off, transformer.

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A 43–97-GHz Mixer-First Front-End With Quadrature Input Matching and On-Chip Image Rejection

Cited by 21 publications

References 35 publications

Evolution Trends and Paradigms of Low Noise Frequency Synthesis and Signal Conversion Using Silicon Technologies

Evolution Trends and Paradigms of Low Noise Frequency Synthesis and Signal Conversion Using Silicon Technologies

Broadband, High-Linearity Switches for Millimeter-Wave Mixers Using Scaled SOI CMOS

A Compact CMOS Broadband Bidirectional Digital Transceiver Frontend With Capacitor Bank and Transformer Matching Network Reuse

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