Noriharu Suematsu

L-band internally matched Si-MMIC front-end

A 1.9 GHz-band internally matched Si-MMIC front-end, fabricated in standard 0.8 /spl mu/m BiCMOS process, was developed. This IC front-end contains a MOSFET T/R switch, a two-stage BJT low noise amplifier (LNA), and a down converter BJT mixer. Since the circuits are monolithically integrated on a low resistivity Si substrate, the coplanar waveguide (CPW) type spiral inductors are used to reduce the dielectric loss of on-chip matching circuits. The T/R switch has measured insertion loss of 2.5 dB and isolation of 25.5 dB at 0/3 V control voltage. The two-stage LNA has gain of 17.1 dB and noise figure (NF) of 2.9 dB at 2 V, 4 mA dc supply. The mixer has conversion gain of 5.9 dB and NF of 15 dB at 2 V, 1.7 mA dc supply. The measured performance of the fabricated Si-MMIC front-end indicates the possibility of application to mobile communication handset terminals.

On-chip matching Si-MMIC for mobile communication terminal application

Recent developments of BiCMOS Si-MMICs for wireless communication applications are reviewed. Among these MMICs, on-chip matching Si-MMICs are suitable for use in compact transceivers. The use of coplanar waveguide (CPW) type spiral inductors is one of the solutions to achieve low loss matching circuits on a low resistive Si substrate used in standard BiCMOS process. An on-chip matching Si-MMIC front-end has been fabricated, in which CPW type spiral inductors are employed. The measured performance at 1.9 GHz with low d.c. power consumption shows the possibility of application to mobile handset terminals. In addition, the feasibility to implement the system on-chip concept is discussed by referring to an IF/PLL IC fabricated in the same process.

Dual bias feed SiGe HBT low noise linear amplifier

A 2 GHz-band SiGe HBT low noise amplifier (LNA) achieving high saturation power and low distortion performance is described. It has a novel diode/resistor dual bias feed circuit for the base of the HBT to extend its P1 dB. In the small signal region, the conventional resistor feed circuit is a dominant base current source, but the in large signal region, the diode turns on and the diode feed circuit can supply base current like a voltage source which allows higher output power and linearity. The fabricated dual feed type LNA shows the P1 dB improvement of 5 dB compared with the conventional resistor feed LNA.

2 GHz band even harmonic type direct conversion receiver with ABB-IC for W-CDMA mobile terminal

A 2 GHz band even harmonic type direct conversion receiver (EH-DCR) is proposed for the W-CDMA mobile terminal. Because of the well-matched anti-parallel diode pair used in the proposed EH-DCR, the receiver can reduce even order mixing products that degrade sensitivity characteristics. Also the proposed EH-DCR can achieve low current consumption with a passive mixer approach. In this paper, the overall receiver with an RF block, an analog baseband IC (ABB-IC) and a demodulator is demonstrated to indicate the effectiveness on the proposed RF architecture. The described evaluation results indicate high instantaneous dynamic range with high sensitivity.

Transfer characteristic of IM/sub 3/ relative phase for a GaAs FET amplifier

Measured transfer characteristic of relative phase of the third order intermodulation distortion (IM/sub 3/) of a GaAs FET amplifier is described. The measurement system and method are also described. For drives in the weakly nonlinear region, the measured relative phase of IM/sub 3/ is equal to that of carriers, and agrees with the analysis result based on Volterra-series representation. For drives in the saturation region, the measured relative phase of IM/sub 3/ versus the input power is larger than that of carriers relative phase. The measured results and the measurement method are useful for the design and adjustment of predistortion type linearizer for GaAs FET high power amplifiers.

0.4-5.2GHz SiGe-MMIC Direct Conversion Mixer for Cognitive Radio Receiver

0.4-5.2 GHz broad-band SiGe-MMIC direct conversion quadrature mixer (Q-MDC) has been developed for multi-band multi-mode cognitive radio receivers by using 0.35 mum SiGe BiCMOS process. To realize broad-band characteristic, a static frequency divider with two-stage emitter follower is used as 90 degree power divider for LO and broad-band doubly balanced mixers are used as I/Q unit mixers. The 90 degree power divider enable to achieve multi-octave operation for LO which covers whole band of 0.4-5.2 GHz. Broad-band unit mixers also enable to achieves wide RF band (0.4-5.2 GHz) and wide base band (up to 500 MHz). The fabricated Q-MIX performs EVM of less than 3% over the whole RF frequency range of 0.4 -5.2 GHz and shows the dynamic range of more than 40 dB for 0.4 GHz UHF application (16 QAM/OFDM), 0.8 GHz/2 GHz W-CDMA (QPSK) and 5.2 GHz IEEE 802.11a W-LAN (64 QAM/OFDM) receptions

A 5 GHz-band SiGe-MMIC direct quadrature modulator using a doubly stacked polyphase filter

A 5 GHz-band SiGe-MMIC direct quadrature modulator using a doubly stacked polyphase filter (PPF) is described. The doubly stacked PPF can dramatically reduce the output phase and magnitude imbalance corresponding to the transmission line length inside the RC PPF networks. The quadrature modulator using two-stage doubly stacked PPF performs the error vector magnitude of 3.6 %rms, magnitude error of 3.0 %rms, and phase error of 1.2 deg at LO frequency of 5.8 GHz for /spl pi//4-shifted QPSK (2 Msps) modulated signals. Wideband characteristics from 5.0 to 6.5 GHz are also demonstrated. This modulator dissipates 11.3 mA at 3.3 V supply voltage.

A 6-18 GHz 20 W SPDT switch using shunt discrete PIN diodes

A broadband high power SPDT switch using shunt discrete PIN diodes is presented. By using shunt SPDT switch configuration, high power performance can be obtained. A novel structure, in which matching sections are added outside of shunt PIN diodes, provides broadband characteristics. The insertion loss of the fabricated MIC switch is less than 2.0 dB at 6 to 18 GHz, and is less than 1.5 dB at 7 to 17 GHz. The power handling capability is over 20 W CW at 12 GHz.

L-band internally matched Si-MMIC low noise amplifier

A Si-MMIC low noise amplifier (LNA), fabricated in conventional 0.8 /spl mu/m Bi-CMOS process, was developed. This LNA is monolithically integrated on a low resistive Si substrate with coplanar waveguide (CPW) type matching circuits. At 1.9 GHz, noise figure of 2.7 dB and gain of 10 dB were obtained at 2 V/2 mA d.c. supply.

An even harmonic type direct conversion SiGe-MMIC receiver for W-CDMA mobile terminals

An even harmonic type direct conversion MMIC receiver for W-CDMA mobile terminals in SiGe HBT technology is described. A 2-stage low noise amplifier (LNA) and two self biased anti-parallel diode pairs (APDPs) for even harmonic mixer (EH-MIX) are integrated into a single chip. The LNA employed dual bias feed circuit to improve the output power and linearity. The EH-MIX can obtain high IIP2 by using APDP. Noise performance of Schottky barrier diode (SBD) for APDP fabricated in SiGe process is lower than that of conventional SBD in the market. Both fabricated LNA and EH-MIX demonstrated high RF performances, and they are applicable to RF front-end of W-CDMA mobile terminals.