DEAN, JACOB THOMAS. RF to Millimeter-Wave Receivers Employing Frequency-Translated Feedback. (Under the direction of Brian A. Floyd).Demand for wireless data is constantly increasing, and to accommodate this trend, systems are moving to both wider bandwidths and higher frequencies where more bandwidth is available. Meanwhile, communication systems are evolving toward topologies with many transmit (TX) or receive (RX) elements, greatly increasing the total throughput of a system by using diversity, spatial multiplexing, and beamforming techniques. In particular, there is much interest in the development of frequency-selective digital beamforming receiver arrays for both communication and sensing. This work aims to develop new RX techniques suitable for use as a software-defined radio (SDR) or at the element level in a digital phased-array system. For such applications, an RX should operate across a wide range of radio frequencies (RF) and support wide instantaneous bandwidths, enabling high data rates. Since spectrum is becoming increasingly crowded, it should be frequency selective at the desired channel and it must be tolerant of out-of-band blockers which may have very high power levels. Power consumption must be carefully managed and dynamic range should be maximized. A receiver with these characteristics could be an invaluable tool for engineers and researchers in a variety of fields.In this work, a new receiver topology is introduced which leverages frequency-translated feedback to set input match. The resulting receiver has the potential to achieve lower noise figure and a wider impedance tuning range than existing methods. Chapter 1 will provide motivation for this work, followed by a brief discussion of beamforming topologies. After this, important figures of merit are defined which will be used as objectives for the rest of this work. With these objectives in mind, the state of the art in integrated RX design will be surveyed. Two common receiver topologies, the low noise amplifier (LNA)-first receiver and the mixer-first receiver, are identified and the benefits and drawbacks of each are discussed. Finally, this chapter provides a survey of the use of frequency-translated feedback within RF systems followed by an overview of the rest of this dissertation.Chapter 2 presents a new RX topology which combines attributes from both the LNAfirst and mixer-first receivers, seeking to leverage the strengths of each. The new RX uses an LNA for good noise performance, followed by a downconversion mixer and baseband amplifiers. Input match is set using frequency-translated feedback to the RF port, which is upconverted from baseband outputs. A wideband linear, time-invariant (LTI) model of the RX is introduced, and this model is used to describe receiver behavior with regard to loop gain, conversion gain, stability, input impedance and noise. This theory shows agreement with simulation results across harmonics and serves to guide design. Chapter 3 describes the design and measurement of a first hardware prototype im...
