Mun-Kyo Lee

Two-stage broadband high-gain W-band amplifier using 0.1-/spl mu/m metamorphic HEMT technology

We report broadband high-gain W-band monolithic microwave integrated circuit amplifiers based on 0.1-/spl mu/m InGaAs-InAlAs-GaAs metamorphic high electron mobility transistor (MHEMT) technology. The amplifiers show excellent S/sub 21/ gains greater than 10 dB in a very broad W-band frequency range of 75-100 GHz, thereby exhibiting a S/sub 21/ gain of 10.1 dB, a S/sub 11/ of -5.1 dB and a S/sub 22/ of -5.2 dB at 100 GHz, respectively. The high gain of the amplifier is mainly attributed to the performance of the MHEMTs exhibiting a maximum transconductance of 691 mS/mm, a current gain cutoff frequency of 189 GHz, and a maximum oscillation frequency of 334 GHz.

High switching performance 0.1-/spl mu/m metamorphic HEMTs for low conversion loss 94-GHz resistive mixers

We report high switching performance of 0.1-/spl mu/m metamorphic high-electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) for microwave/millimeter-wave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) resistive mixer applications. Very low source/drain resistances and gate capacitances, which are 56 and 31% lower than those of conventional pseudomorphic HEMTs, are due to the optimized epitaxial and device structure. Based on these high-performance metamorphic HEMTs, a 94-GHz MMIC resistive mixer was designed and fabricated, and a very low conversion loss of 8.2 dB at a local oscillator power of 7 dBm was obtained. This is the best performing W-band resistive field-effect transistor mixer in terms of conversion loss utilizing GaAs-based HEMTs reported to date.

A Novel 94-GHz MHMET-Based Diode Mixer Using a 3–dB Tandem Coupler

We report a high-performance 94-GHz monolithic millimeter-wave integrated-circuit diode mixer using metamorphic high-electron mobility transistor (MHEMT) diodes and a coplanar waveguide tandem coupler. A novel single-balanced structure of diode mixer is proposed in this paper, where a 3-dB tandem coupler with two sections of parallel-coupled line and air-bridge crossover structures are used for wide frequency operation. The fabricated mixer exhibits excellent local oscillator-radio-frequency (LO-RF) isolation, greater than 30 dB, in the 5-GHz bandwidth of 91-96 GHz. A good conversion loss of 7.4 dB is measured at 94 GHz. The proposed MHEMT-based diode mixer shows superior LO-RF isolation and conversion loss to those of the W-band mixers reported to date.

A Novel 94-GHz MHEMT Resistive Mixer Using a Micromachined Ring Coupler

In this letter, we present a high performance 94-GHz millimeter-wave monolithic integrated circuit resistive mixer using a 70-nm metamorphic high electron mobility transistor (MHEMT) and micromachined ring coupler. A novel three-dimensional structure of a resistive mixer was proposed in this work, and the ring coupler with the surface micromachined dielectric-supported air-gap microstrip line structure was used for high local oscillator/radio frequency (LO-RF) isolation. Also, the LO-RF isolation was optimized through the simulation. The fabricated mixer has excellent LO-RF isolation, greater than 29 dB, in 2-GHz bandwidth of 93-95GHz. The good conversion loss of 8.9dB was measured at 94GHz. To our knowledge, compared to previously reported W-band mixers, the proposed MHEMT-based resistive mixer using a micromachined ring coupler has shown superior LO-RF isolation and conversion loss

An 8-b 1GS/s Fractional Folding CMOS Analog-to- Digital Converter with an Arithmetic Digital Encoding Technique

A fractional folding analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with a novel arithmetic digital encoding technique is discussed. In order to reduce the asymmetry errors of the boundary conditions for the conventional folding ADC, a structure using an odd number of folding blocks and fractional folding rate is proposed. To implement the fractional technique, a new arithmetic digital encoding technique composed of a memory and an adder is described. Further, the coding errors generated by device mismatching and other external factors are minimized, since an iterating offset self-calibration technique is adopted with a digital error correction logic. A prototype 8-bit 1GS/s ADC has been fabricated using an 1.2V 0.13 um 1-poly 6-metal CMOS process. The effective chip area is 2.1 mm 2 (ADC core : 1.4 mm 2 , calibration engine : 0.7

94 GHz CPW branch-line bandpass filter for planar integrated millimeter-wave circuits

We report the 94 GHz CPW branch-line bandpass filter for planar integrated millimeter- wave circuits. The basic idea is to use the branch-line coupler as a transversal filtering section by connecting the coupled ports to the open load stubs and taking the isolated port as the output node. The 94 GHz bandpass filter exhibits an insertion loss of 2.5 dB with an 11.7 % 3 dB relative bandwidth at a center frequency of 94 GHz and the return loss is better than -18 dB at a center frequency. The designed and fabricated 94 GHz bandpass filter shows the good performance for planar integrated millimeter-wave circuits.

Low conversion loss and high LO-RF isolation 94-GHz active down converter

We report a low conversion loss and high local oscillator (LO)-to-RF isolation 94-GHz monolithic-microwave integrated-circuit (MMIC) active down converter using 0.1-mum InGaAs/InAlAs/GaAs metamorphic high electron-mobility transistor (MHEMT). The fabricated MMIC active down converter employs a one-stage MHEMT amplifier in the RF port of the active down converter, thereby amplifying the RF signal and improving the LO-to-RF isolation by using an inherent S12 isolation characteristic. The fabricated MMIC active down converter shows an excellent conversion loss of 6.7 dB at an LO power of 10 dBm and high LO-to-RF isolations of 21 plusmn 0.5 dB in a frequency range from 93.7 to 94.3 GHz. High dc and RF performances of the MHEMT used for the active down converter are due to the optimized epitaxial and device structure, and a maximum transconductance of 760 mS/mm, a current gain cutoff frequency of 195 GHz, and a maximum oscillation frequency of 391 GHz were measured. A active down-converter module is assembled by mounting the active down-converter chip on a jig with low-loss transition structure between the coplanar waveguide and waveguide. The fabricated active down-converter module shows a good conversion loss of 10.9 dB and a very high LO-to-RF isolation of 27.5 dB at 94.03 GHz

W-band Waveguide-to-Coplanar Waveguide Transition for 94 GHz MIMIC applications

In this paper, we report our recent research works on the W-band waveguide-to-CPW transitions for various MIMIC applications. For this, the transitions operating in a frequency range of 85 ~ 100 GHz are designed, fabricated and characterized. The designed waveguide-to-CPW transition is optimized to achieve low loss by using an EM field solver of HFSS. From the measurement, an insertion of -2.2 dB and a return loss of -23.86 dB, respectively, were obtained at 94 GHz. The average insertion loss of waveguide-to-CPW back-to-back transition is -2.5 dB in a frequency range of 85 ~ 100 GHz.

A 12b 100 MS/s Three-Step Hybrid Pipeline ADC Based on Time-Interleaved SAR ADCs

This work proposes a 12b 100 MS/s 0.11 m CMOS three-step hybrid pipeline ADC for high- speed communication and mobile display systems requiring high resolution, low power, and small size. The first stage based on time-interleaved dual- channel SAR ADCs properly handles the Nyquist-rate input without a dedicated SHA. An input sampling clock for each SAR ADC is synchronized to a reference clock to minimize a sampling-time mismatch between the channels. Only one residue amplifier is employed and shared in the proposed ADC for the first-stage SAR ADCs as well as the MDAC of back-end pipeline stages. The shared amplifier, in particular, reduces performance degradation caused by offset and gain mismatches between two channels of the SAR ADCs. Two separate reference voltages relieve a reference disturbance due to the different operating frequencies of the front-end SAR ADCs and the back-end pipeline stages. The prototype ADC in a 0.11 m CMOS shows the measured DNL and INL within 0.38 LSB and 1.21 LSB, respectively. The ADC occupies an active die area of 1.34 mm 2 and consumes 25.3 mW with a maximum SNDR and SFDR of 60.2 dB and 69.5 dB, respectively, at 1.1 V and 100 MS/s.

94GHz Single-balanced Diode Mixer for FMCW Radar applications

In this paper, we present a high performance 94 GHz MMIC diode mixer using a 100-nm metamorphic high electron mobility transistor (MHEMT) diode and coplanar waveguide (CPW) 3-dB tandem coupler. A novel single-balanced structure of MHEMT diode mixer was proposed in this work, and 3-dB tandem coupler with the air-bridge structure was used for broadband LO-RF isolation. The fabricated mixer has LO-RF isolation, greater than 19 dB, in 15 GHz bandwidth of 82-97 GHz. The good conversion loss of 14.8 dB was measured at 94 GHz.