Ho-Hsiang Chen

A low phase noise, wideband and compact CMOS PLL for use in a heterodyne 802.15.3c TRX

A low phase noise, wideband, mm-wave, integer-N PLL that is capable of supporting a 802.15.3c heterodyne TRX is reported. The PLL can generate 6 equally spaced tones from 43.2GHz to 51.84GHz, which is suitable for a heterodyne architecture with LO=(4/5)RF. Phase noise is measured directly at the LO frequency and is better than −97.5dBc/Hz@1MHz across the entire band. The total power consumption is 72mW from a 1V supply. The reported frequency synthesizer is smaller, exhibits less phase noise, and consumes less power than prior art. In addition, the LO tone corresponds to the fundamental of the VCO as opposed to a higher harmonic. Central to the PLL performance is the design of a low-noise, mm-wave VCO with a 22.9% tuning range. It is noted that resonator nonlinearities may result in significant up-conversion of flicker noise in wideband, mm-wave VCOs. To overcome this, Digitally-Controlled-Artificial-Dielectric (DiCAD) is used to linearize the resonator.

TSV RF de-embedding method and modeling for 3DIC

TSV (Thru-Silicon-Via) for 3D packaging technique is a further passive component, for connecting two dies by stacking. RF characteristics of TSV with modeling up to 50GHz are presented in this paper, where a L-2L de-embedding method (double delay) is in use, which is the first applied for TSV on-wafer measurement. Furthermore, a new T-model is proposed for modeling a single TSV of 28nm CMOS process.

An extended de-embedding method for on-wafer components

On-wafer de-embedding method has been proposed for different method up to millimeter-wave (mm-wave) frequency range. An extended de-embedding method for on wafer devices up to 65 GHz is proposed. Using Vertical connection of L-2L (VL2L) is presented in this paper, with a calibrated loss tangent value in mm-wave. It shows significant good and accurate results for on-wafer modeling up to 65 GHz. VL2L are considered to be a good method for different kind of devices, such as capacitors. Also, the results by different CMOS process and EM simulation are with good agreement.