Hsien-Yuan Liao

Feed-Forward Correction Technique for a High Linearity WiMAX Differential Low Noise Amplifier

A high linearity differential low noise amplifier (LNA) is designed for WiMAX applications. A feed-forward correction circuit is applied to improve the linearity of LNA. The LNA achieves a power gain of 15.2 dB, a noise figure of 2.95 dB, an input referred third order intercept point of 3 dBm with power dissipation of 17.03 mW from a 1.8 V supply voltage. The chip is fabricated in TSMC 0.18-mum CMOS technology. The chip area occupies 1.13 x 0.99 mm2.

RF Model and Verification of Through-Silicon Vias in Fully Integrated SiGe Power Amplifier

This letter proposes an RF model of through-silicon via (TSV) considering both skin-depth and lossy substrate effects up to 20 GHz. The TSV is fabricated in 0.18-μm SiGe BiCMOS process with the dimensions of 50 μm in diameter and 100 μm in depth. The equivalent circuit model is extracted from the measured results and physical structure of a single TSV. The frequency-dependent characteristics of TSV can be completely modeled by frequency-independent lumped elements through parameter extraction. Furthermore, a fully integrated SiGe power amplifier (PA) with TSVs is designed to verify the accuracy of the RF model of TSV. Meanwhile, a PA without TSVs is fabricated to compare the performance of the PA with TSVs. Due to the low parasitic impedance of TSVs, the PA with TSVs achieves better performance than that without TSVs, where the improvement is 0.5 dB in power gain and 2% in power-added efficiency, respectively.

Harmonic control network for 2.6 GHz CMOS class-F power amplifier

A CMOS class-F power amplifier was developed based on the second and third harmonic control output network for WiMAX application. The harmonic control network was implemented on an off-chip PCB. The measured power performance are more than 24.4% with P1dB = 20.2 dBm and Gp = 13.1 dB at a low drain voltage of 1.8 V. The ACPR was below −33 dBc under standard WiMAX modulated signal at 5 dBm input power.

High-linearity CMOS feedforward power amplifier for WiMAX application

A high-linearity CMOS feedforward power amplifier has been proposed. The class-C and class-AB amplifiers were combined to perform a differential circuit, which was utilized as the error amplifier to cancel the third-order nonlinear signal with the main amplifier. Therefore, the linearity of the feedforward power amplifier was improved. At the operation frequency of 2.6 GHz, the measured output IP3 and ACPR are 33.2 dBm and -59 dBc, respectively. Thus, the feedforward architecture is very suitable for high linear power amplifier design.

A Compact and Low Power Consumption K-band Differential Low Noise Amplifier Design Using Transformer Feedback Technique

This paper presents a compact and low power consumption three-stage differential low noise amplifier (LNA) with a 10 dB differential mode gain at 25.8 GHz by using transformer feedback technique in standard 0.18-mum CMOS technology. The input 1-dB compression point and the input third-order intercept point are -17.8 dBm and -5 dBm, respectively. The measured noise figure at 25.8 GHz is only 4.84 dB. The minimum input return and output return losses over a 3- dB bandwidth of 22.8-26.8 GHz are 11 dB and 7 dB, respectively. The overall power consumption is less than 25.6 mW. This three- stage differential LNA only occupies a 0.63 times 0.88 mm in area.

A Compact V-band Subharmonic Resistive Mixer Using LO Stacked Marchand Balun and RF Miniaturized Power Divider

A compact V-band subharmonic resistive mixer with high linearity and isolation is proposed, which includes an LO stacked Marchand balun and miniaturized RF power divider. The stacked layout for LO balun is used to increase coupling factor and obtain low insertion loss and compact size than planar one. The RF power divider utilizes the reduce-size technique to miniaturize the required transmission line. Therefore, the proposed mixer exhibits compact size of 1.0 x 0.8 mm2 . The measured conversion loss is less than 15 dB at RF bandwidth of 37 to 60 GHz with 5.8-GHz fixed IF frequency. The LO-to-IF and LO-to-RF isolations are better than 39 dB. The excellent input P1dB and input IP3 are obtained as high as 10 dBm and 28 dBm, respectively.