Reza Rofougaran

A multistandard, multiband SoC with integrated BT, FM, WLAN radios and integrated power amplifier

The growing occurrences of WLAN, BT, and FM on the same mobile device have created a demand for putting all three on the same die to save on die size, I/O count, BOM, and ultimately cost. Common blocks such as crystal oscillator, bandgap, and power management units can be easily shared. This paper presents a solution in which 802.11a/b/g WLAN, single-stream 11n (SSN) WLAN, BT, and FM subsystem and radio are integrated on a single die.

A switched-capacitor mm-wave VCO in 65 nm digital CMOS

A 34–40 GHz VCO fabricated in 65 nm digital CMOS technology is demonstrated in this paper. The VCO uses a combination of switched capacitors and varactors for tuning and has a maximum Kvco of 240 MHz/V. It exhibits a phase noise of better than −98 dBc/Hz @ 1-MHz offset across the band while consuming 12 mA from a 1.2-V supply, an FOMT of −182.1 dBc/Hz. A cascode buffer following the VCO consumes 11 mA to deliver 0 dBm LO signal to a 50Ω load.

A fully integrated 22.6dBm mm-Wave PA in 40nm CMOS

A fully integrated 60GHz CMOS PA with a PSAT of 22.6dBm is presented. To our knowledge, this is the highest reported PSAT at mm-waves in standard CMOS. To achieve a high power level, 32 differential PAs are combined through a network of transmission lines, Wilkinson combiners, and a multi-port argyle transformer. This method of combining minimizes loss while implementing a low impedance load (~12Ω) at the drains of each of the last stage PAs. Electromigration and other reliability issues are discussed.

A compact millimeter-wave energy transmission system for wireless applications

A compact energy transmission system in 40nm standard CMOS is presented. The system consists of a 60GHz VCO followed by a quad-core power amplifier as transmitter and an RF-to-DC converter as receiver. The total power delivered by the quad-core PA to its four 50Ω loads is 24.6dBm. The receiver is a complementary cross-coupled rectifier with a measured efficiency of 28% while supplying 1mA of current. The system can support amplitude and frequency modulations and beam-forming capabilities for wireless applications with minimal front-end complexities.

A multichannel, multicore mm-Wave clustered VCO with phase noise, tuning range, and lifetime reliability enhancements

Clustering and multi-core transformer coupling techniques are presented to improve phase noise, tuning range, and reliability of a mm-wave VCO. A proofof-concept design targeting the WiGig protocol is shown. Each cluster of VCOs covers one channel resulting in better phase noise performance. Multicores of VCOs with uncorrelated noise are combined using transformers to further enhance phase noise and combat the voltage swing reliability issues. Furthermore, due to realization of multiple inductive elements in parallel instead of one small inductor, this approach bypasses Q-degradation of small inductors (<;50pH). The VCO achieves a phase noise of -101.8dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset with over 12.6% tuning range (50.7GHz to 57.5GHz) and an FOM of -183dB/Hz.

A single-chip and multi-mode 2.4/5GHz RF transceiver for IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN

This paper presents, for the first time, an RF system design for a single chip, dual-band and multi-mode RF transceiver for IEEE 802.11 a and b wireless local area network (WLAN) standards. Topics covered focus on the basic RF system properties, architecture and specifications.

A Rel-12 2G/3G/LTE-advanced 2CC transmitter

This work presents a cellular transceiver capable of transmitting two simultaneous channels with an aggregate bandwidth of up to 40 MHz, supporting a 100 Mbps uplink rate. The transmitter has 8 RF output ports covering the cellular transmit bands within the 572–2100 MHz frequency range. It can support TX LTE-advanced Rel-12 Cat7, HSPA+ Rel-11, TDSCDMA Rel-9, and GSM/EDGE Rel-9. The 40 nm CMOS transmitter consumes 22 mA and 27 mA in 3G and LTE modes (at 0 dBm antenna power), respectively, including the PLL, DCXO and biasing for a single channel.

A Rel-12 2G/3G/LTE-advanced 3CC receiver

This work presents a cellular receiver capable of receiving three simultaneous channels with an aggregate bandwidth of 60 MHz, enabling a 300 Mbps downlink rate. The receiver has 16 RF LNA ports covering the cellular bands within the 572-2700 MHz frequency range. It supports LTE-advanced Rel-12 Cat6, HSPA+ Rel-11, TD-SCDMA Rel-9, and GSM/EDGE Rel-9. The 40 nm CMOS receiver consumes 13.7 mA and 17.6 mA of battery current in 3G and LTE modes, respectively, including the PLL, DCXO, and bia sing for a single channel.

Adaptive Gain and Phase Adjustment for local linearization of Power Amplifiers of micro/mm-wave Phase arrays

A wideband, local Power Amplifier (PA) linearization technique is presented. The proposed Adaptive Gain and Phase Adjustment (AGPA) local linearization technique compensates for both AM-AM and AM-PM distortion of PA for large channel bandwidths of hundreds of megahertz. A 60GHz PA designed in a 28nm CMOS process is designed and measured. AGPA improves the OP1dB of the stacked PA by 2.8dB from 9.5dBm to 12.3dBm and reduces the IM3 products by 3dB with a tone spacing of 200MHz at 8dBm output power.

9.1 A 13mm 2 40nm multiband GSM/EDGE/HSPA+/TDSCDMA/LTE transceiver

To support increased device functionality and higher data-rates in LTE-enabled systems, while improving user experience and usage time, there is a need to reduce RFIC size and power consumption without degrading performance, while maintaining backward compatibility with legacy 2G/3G systems [1]. This paper introduces a 13mm2, 40nm CMOS 2G/HSPA+/TDSCDMA/UE cat. 4 transceiver that consumes 36/65mA battery-referenced current in 3G/LTE20 modes (B1, -50dBm TX, -60dBm RX). This is achieved in part by employing a multiport single-core LNA with a multitap inductor and a current-mode-driven single-core transmit mixer. Baseband-assisted calibration techniques help achieve <;1.2% RX EVM in LTE20 and >60dBm IIP2 in all bands. To save on platform area and cost, the RFIC supports single-ended LNAs, 32kHz clock generation, and free-running XTAL operation. TX SAW filters are not required.