Chul Nam

Full CMOS Single Supply PLC SoC ASIC with Integrated Analog Front-End

This paper presents a single supply PLC SoC ASIC with a built-in analog Front-end circuit. To achieve the low power consumption along with low cost, this PLC SoC employs fully CMOS Analog Front End (AFE) and several LDO regulators (LDOs) to provide the internal power for Logic Core, DAC and Input/output Pad driver. The receiver part of the AFE consists of Pre-amplifier, Gain Amplifier and 1 bit Comparator. The transmitter part of the AFE consists of 10 bit Digital Analog Converter and Line Driver. This SoC is implemented with 0.18 μm 1 Poly 5 Metal CMOS Process. The single supply voltage is 3.3 V and the internal powers are provided using LDOs. The total power consumption is below 30 mA at stand-by mode to meet the Eco-Design requirement. The die size is 3.2 x 2.8 mm 2 .

A Novel MEMS LC Tank for RF Voltage Controlled Oscillator(VCO)

A linearly tunable MEMS capacitor changing the overlap area and a high-Q electroplated solenoid inductor are developed. The single crystal silicon MEMS structure is bonded with the pyrex glass substrate to make the designed capacitor. The pyrex glass is adopted as a substrate instead of the silicon to reduce the RF losses through the substrate for both a capacitor and a inductor. The measured capacitor shows the nominal capacitance of 1.4 pF, 10 % tuning range at 2 GHz and the inductor has inductance between 1 nH and 5 nH, maximum Q factor over 10 at 2 GHz. The models are also developed and proven by Serenade software of Ansoft Corporation respectively.

MEMS variable capacitor for one-chip rf front end

Area-varying tunable MEMS (MicroElectroMechanical Systems) capacitor with 608 comb fingers is developed. The 6 um-thick single crystal silicon MEMS structure is bonded to the pyrex glass substrate using the glass-silicon anodic bonding technique and chemical mechanical polish to make the designed capacitor. The pyrex glass is used as a substrate instead of the silicon for reducing the RF losses through the substrate. The measured capacitor shows the nominal capacitance of 1.4 pF, Q-factor of 4 at 1 GHz. The capacitor model is also developed and proved by Serenade software of Ansoft Corporation.

Electroplated solenoid-type inductors for CMOS rf CO

A Solenoid-type Inductors have been realized using electroplating technique mainly used for 2 Ghz band CMOS RF VCO applications. The integrated spiral inductor has low Q factor due to substrate loss and skin effects. And it also occupies large area compared to solenoid-type inductor. The direction of flux of the solenoid-type inductor is parallel to the substrate, which can lower substrate loss and other interference with integrated passive components. In this research, Solenoid-type inductors are simulated and modeled as equivalent circuit for CMOS RF VCO based on extracted S- parameters. The electroplated solenoid-type inductors are fabricated on both a standard silicon substrate and glass substrate by thick PR photolithography and copper electroplating. The achieved inductance varies range from 1 nH to 5 nH, and maximum Q factor over 10. The inductors are scheduled to be integrated on CMOS RF VCO with RF MEMS capacitor for future.