Marcus Gavell

Experiment design for quick statistical FET large signal model extraction

Process variations influence the accuracy of designs and yield in production. This paper addresses the implementation of these variations in large signal FET models, with particular attention on the organization of measurements as to speed up the direct extraction of the model parameters.

An E-Band(71–76, 81–86 GHz) balanced frequency tripler for high-speed communications

An E-Band transistor-based balanced frequency tripler is implemented using a 0.15 µm GaAs mHEMT process which can be integrated into a single-chip RF front-end. The balanced configuration with 90° hybrids at the input and output improves the port impedance matching which is measured to be better than 15 dB at the input and 10 dB at the output over the frequencies of interest. The tripler has a conversion loss of 11.5 dB from 71 GHz to 76 GHz and 14 dB from 81 GHz to 86 GHz. The second and forth harmonics are suppressed by more than 30 dB and the fundamental frequency by 20 dB. The tripler can deliver −2 dBm output power.

A high voltage mm-wave stacked HEMT power amplifier in 0.1 µm InGaAs technology

A stacked HEMT PA has been designed and implemented in a commercial 0.1 μm InGaAs pHEMT process to increase gain and output power at mm-waves. Measurements on the 3-stage PA with parallel devices verify saturated output power of 25 dBm and maximum PAE of 15% at 61GHz, which is the highest reported output power of similar designs and topologies. The chip size measures 3.2mm2 which makes this the most power dense V-band amplifier reported from GaAs with 100mW/mm2.

An NLOS-capable 60 GHz MIMO demonstrator: System concept & performance

In this paper we present a 60 GHz 2 × 2 MIMO demonstrator which has been developed to accomplish robust line-of-sight as well as non-line-of-sight indoor transmission. The physical layer concept is based on Code-Spread Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (CS-OFDM) and Alamouti Space-Time Coding (STC) to make maximum use of both frequency and space diversity. The highly modular, reconfigurable hardware implementation comprises commercial FPGA platforms and self-developed extension modules up to fully integrated TX/RX 60 GHz frontends in III-V technology. We present results of transmission experiments conducted in a small office environment, which exemplary illustrate the capabilities and the performance of the presented approach.

A W- and G-band MMIC source using InP HBT technology

A frequency doubler/quadrupler for W-and G-band application is designed and fabricated utilizing an InP 250nm heterojunction bipolar transistor process. The multiplier is integrated with balanced V-band VCO. The VCO can be tuned between 57 to 61 GHz with average output power of 6 dBm and phase noise lower than −95 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset frequency. The circuit VCO plus multiplier can be used as a source with output power of −2dBm in 113 –118 GHz bandwidth and −4dBm from 212 to 228 GHz.

On the implementation of device processing tolerances in FET Large Signal Models

Device technology is becoming quite mature and repeatable, but nevertheless, for various reasons, there are statistical variations in device parameters. These process variations will influence the accuracy of the designs and yield in production. The implementation of these variations in Large Signal Models is discussed in the paper.

A Fundamental Upconverting Gilbert Mixer for 100 GHz Wireless Applications

The design and characterization of an up-converting double balanced Gilbert cell mixer in a 0.5 µm InP DHBT process for applications in the 81-102 GHz range is presented. The process features a 4-metal layer stackup that invites to more complex designs compared to most III-V technologies. The presented mixer is a double balanced Gilbert cell design and includes an LO buffer amplifier as well as RF and LO Marchand baluns integrated on chip. The Gilbert cell mixer show excellent results in terms of; conversion gain of 13 dB, LO-RF isolation of 47 dB, output P1dB equals -10 dBm and the total power consumption is 170 mW. The frequency bandwidth covers 81 to 102 GHz.

Highly Integrated E-Band Direct Conversion Receiver

This paper presents a highly integrated 70-98 GHz direct conversion receiver with 3 stage LNA, x6 frequency multiplier with buffer amplifier, and IQ-mixer suitable for Eband radio communication. The LNA, x6 and IQ-mixer are also presented separately. The LNA covers 65 to 95 GHz with 15 dB gain and minimum 5.5 dB noise figure, x6 covers 71 to 91 GHz with 0 to 8 dBm output power and the IQ-mixer an RF frequency from 70 to 95 GHz and IF frequency from DC to 12 GHz with only 8 dB conversion loss and better than 15 dB image reject. The complete receiver circuit shows an RF bandwidth of 70 to 98 GHz, LO bandwidth of 75 to 92 GHz and IF bandwidth from DC to more than 12 GHz. The conversion gain is 3 to 6 dB with a noise figure of 5 to 7 dB, the image rejection 15 dB to as high as 28 dB, and the input 1 dB compression point -12 dBm.

A 53 GHz Single Chip Receiver for Geostationary Atmospheric Measurements

This paper presents the design and characterization of a multifunctional receiver with integrated ×4 frequency multiplier for the LO generation, image reject mixer and low noise amplifier into a single chip MMIC. Noise figure has been measured to 4.6 dB and power consumption to 140 mW. The image rejection is better than 47 dB, conversion gain 10 dB and IIP3 -12 dBm. This performance is far superior to any comparable existing published 53 GHz receiver. The process used is commercially available 0.15 µm GaAs mHEMT technology featuring ft=120 GHz and fmax=200 GHz.

Flip-Chip-Based Multichip Module for Low Phase-Noise

This paper reports on a flip-chip (FC)-based multichip module (MCM) for low phase-noise (PN) V-band frequency generation. A high-performance ×8 GaAs metamorphic high-electron mobility transistor monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) multiplier and a low PN 7-GHz GaAs InGaP heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) MMIC oscillator were used in the module. The microstrip MMICs were FC bonded to an Al2O3 carrier with patterns optimized for low-loss transitions. The FC-based module was experimentally characterized to have a PN of -88 dBc/Hz @ 100-kHz offset and -112 dBc/Hz @ 1-MHz offset with an output power of 11 dBm. For comparison, the MMICs were also FC bonded as individual chips and the performance was compared with the bare dies without FC bonding. It was verified that the FC bonding has no detrimental effect on the MMIC performance. The tests revealed that the FC module provided improved performance. To our best knowledge, this is the first FC-based module for millimeter-wave frequency generation. The module also presents one of the best PN reported for millimeter-wave frequency sources.