Pei-Si Wu

A 60GHz Low-Power Six-Port Transceiver for Gigabit Software-Defined Transceiver Applications

A 60GHz six-port transceiver IC in a standard-bulk 0.13mum CMOS process is reported. This chip is composed of a VCO, a modified reflection-type I/Q modulator, a buffer amplifier, an SPDT switch, an LNA, and a six-port detector. The measured results show 4.5dB conversion gain and 4Gb/s modulation BW with 97.7mW DC power consumption.

Design and analysis of CMOS broad-band compact high-linearity modulators for gigabit microwave/millimeter-wave applications

CMOS broad-band compact high-linearity binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) and IQ modulators are proposed and analyzed in this paper. The modulators are constructed utilizing a modified reflection-type topology with the transmission lines implemented on the thick SiO/sub 2/ layer to avoid the lossy silicon substrate. The monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) chips were fabricated using standard bulk 0.13-/spl mu/m MS/RF CMOS process and demonstrated an ultracompact layout with more than 80% chip size reduction. The broadside couplers and 180/spl deg/ hybrid for the modulators in the CMOS process are broad-band designs with low phase/amplitude errors. The dc offset and imbalance for the proposed topology are investigated and compared with the conventional reflection-type modulators. The measured dc offset was improved by more than 10 dB. Both BPSK and IQ modulators feature a conversion loss of 13 dB, a modulation bandwidth of wider than 1 GHz, and second- and third-order spur suppressions of better than -30 dBc. The IQ modulator shows good sideband suppression with high local-oscillator suppression from 20 to 40 GHz. The modulators are also evaluated with a digital modulation signal and demonstrate excellent modulator quality and adjacent channel power ratio.

Analysis of Multiconductor Coupled-Line Marchand Baluns for Miniature MMIC Design

The analysis and systematic design procedure for multiconductor coupled-line Marchand baluns are presented in this paper. A simple two-conductor coupled-line model is used to analyze the Marchand balun and simplify the analysis significantly. Two monolithic balanced frequency doublers with miniature Marchand baluns are implemented to verify the design procedure. Both the chips achieve the smallest chip sizes at their operating frequencies with comparable performance.

Analysis and Design of Reduced-Size Marchand Rat-Race Hybrid for Millimeter-Wave Compact Balanced Mixers in 130-nm CMOS Process

The analysis and design flow for reduced-size Marchand rat-race hybrids are presented in this paper. A simplified single-to-differential mode is used to analyze the Marchand balun, and the methodology to reduce the size of Marchand balun is developed. The 60-GHz CMOS singly balanced gate mixer and diode mixer using the reduced-size Marchand rat-race hybrid are implemented to verify the design methodology. The monolithic microwave integrated circuit mixers achieve comparable performance with a compact chip size among the reported 60-GHz CMOS mixers.

A Compact 60 GHz Integrated Up-Converter Using Miniature Transformer Couplers With 5 dB Conversion Gain

A 60 GHz singly balanced subharmonic up-converter is presented in this letter. The monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) chip is implemented using a standard 0.13 mu m mixed-signal/radio frequency (RF) CMOS process. This circuit combines a subharmonic mixer and a three-stage cascode output amplifier. A new miniature transformer coupler is used to provide the local oscillation (LO) signals with 90deg phase difference to achieve subharmonic mixing. This MMIC demonstrates a conversion gain of 5 dB for RF frequency from 58 to 66 GHz, and the 2LO-to-RF isolation is over 40 dB. The chip size is only 0.366 mm 2.

Design and analysis of a miniature W-band MMIC subharmonically pumped resistive mixer

A W-band monolithic sub-harmonically pumped (SHP) resistive mixer was designed and fabricated using a standard 0.15/spl mu/m PHEMT process. A nonlinear model featuring modified drain-current characteristics was developed and used in circuit simulation. A small chip size of 1.5 /spl times/ 1.0 mm/sup 2/ was achieved by using a transformer as a LO balun. Measured results of this circuit showed 14-18 dB conversion losses from 75 to 88 GHz, and agree well with simulation. Analysis on circuit imbalance shows that the phase imbalance of the balun is the dominant factor on LO isolation, and the conversion loss is quite robust to all circuit imbalances.

A 4–41 GHz Singly Balanced Distributed Mixer Using GaAs pHEMT Technology

A broadband singly balanced distributed mixer is developed using a 0.15-mum GaAs pHEMT foundry process. It is the first time that the charge-injection approach is applied to a distributed mixer. With the advantage of charge-injection, the mixer achieves a high conversion gain with low dc consumption. The fabricated distributed mixer with an integrated broadband transformer has a compact chip size of 2mmtimes1mm. Measurement results show that the mixer achieves a conversion gain of better than 3.5dB over a broadband frequency from 4-41GHz, with a relatively low dc power consumption of 100mW

A miniature 15-50-GHz medium power amplifier

A miniature power amplifier, which combines two conventional distributed amplifiers and a single transistor amplifier is designed to achieve wide bandwidth, high gain and moderate output power from 15 to 50 GHz. This circuit was fabricated using 0.15-mum GaAs based pHEMT MMIC technology. The measured small signal gain is 21plusmn1.5dB from 15 to 50 GHz, and the output saturated power is 18-22 dBm from 18 to 50 GHz with a miniature size of 1.5 times 1 mm2

An ultra compact and broadband 15-75GHz BPSK modulator using 0.13-μm CMOS process

In this paper, an ultra compact and broadband 15-75 GHz BPSK modulator using standard bulk 0.13-µm CMOS process is described. This modulator was constructed utilizing a new reflection-type topology, with the transmission lines implemented on the thick SiO2 layer as the substrate to avoid the lossy silicon. The overall chip size, including baseband, LO, and RF probe pads, is only 0.5 × 0.35 mm 2 . Compared with the previously reported GaAs modulators, this work demonstrates a more than 80% chip area reduction, and features an amplitude imbalance of within 0.5 dB with a phase imbalance of within 3° between 15 and 75 GHz. Regarding the modulation quality, the measured error vector magnitude (EVM) of the BPSK modulator at 40 GHz is within 3.5 and 7% for a data rate of 1 and 10 Mb/s, respectively. The LO-to-RF isolation is better than 40 dB among all the operation frequency. From continuous- wave (CW) spectrum characterization, the modulation bandwidth of the modulator is wider than 1 GHz. Index Terms — BPSK, CMOS, millimeter-wave (MMW), MMIC, modulator, and reflection-type.

An 18-71 GHz multi-band and high gain GaAs MMIC medium power amplifier for millimeter-wave applications

This paper presents the design and measurement results of a broadband high gain MMIC medium power amplifier. The proposed 18-71 GHz multiband amplifier provides a single chip solution for all 28 GHz, 38 GHz, and 60 GHz millimeter-wave applications with a chip size of 2.5 mm /spl times/ 1 mm. The high gain performance of more than 20 dB from 41-63 GHz has been attained. It provides at least 16 dBm of maximum output power from 19-57 GHz. This amplifier consists of one distributed stage for broadband design and cascaded single-ended stages for medium power output. This chip demonstrates the highest frequency application using this combined topology compared with all previously published results. The circuit was fabricated with a 0.15-/spl mu/m gate-length GaAs-based HEMT MMIC technology.