Sten E. Gunnarsson

Highly integrated 60 GHz transmitter and receiver MMICs in a GaAs pHEMT technology

Highly integrated transmitter and receiver MMICs have been designed in a commercial 0.15 /spl mu/m, 88 GHz f/sub T//183 GHz f/sub MAX/ GaAs pHEMT MMIC process and characterized on both chip and system level. These chips show the highest level of integration yet presented in the 60 GHz band and are true multipurpose front-end designs. The system operates with an LO signal in the range 7-8 GHz. This LO signal is multiplied in an integrated multiply-by-eight (X8) LO chain, resulting in an IF center frequency of 2.5 GHz. Although the chips are inherently multipurpose designs, they are especially suitable for high-speed wireless data transmission due to their very broadband IF characteristics. The single-chip transmitter MMIC consists of a balanced resistive mixer with an integrated ultra-wideband IF balun, a three-stage power amplifier, and the X8 LO chain. The X8 is a multifunction design by itself consisting of a quadrupler, a feedback amplifier, a doubler, and a buffer amplifier. The transmitter chip delivers 3.7/spl plusmn/1.5 dBm over the RF frequency range of 54-61 GHz with a peak output power of 5.2 dBm at 57 GHz. The single-chip receiver MMIC contains a three-stage low-noise amplifier, an image reject mixer with an integrated ultra-wideband IF hybrid and the same X8 as used in the transmitter chip. The receiver chip has 7.1/spl plusmn/1.5 dB gain between 55 and 63 GHz, more than 20 dB of image rejection ratio between 59.5 and 64.5 GHz, 10.5 dB of noise figure, and -11 dBm of input-referred third-order intercept point (IIP3).

60 GHz Single-Chip Front-End MMICs and Systems for Multi-Gb/s Wireless Communication

Single-chip 60 GHz transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) MMICs have been designed and characterized in a 0.15mum (fT~ 120 GHz/f MAX> 200 GHz) GaAs mHEMT MMIC process. This paper describes the second generation of single-chip TX and RX MMICs together with work on packaging (e.g., flip-chip) and system measurements. Compared to the first generation of the designs in a commercial pHEMT technology, the MMICs presented in this paper show the same high level of integration but occupy smaller chip area and have higher gain and output power at only half the DC power consumption. The system operates with a LO signal in the range of 7-8 GHz. This LO signal is multiplied in an integrated multiply-by-eight (X8) LO multiplier chain, resulting in an IF center frequency of 2.5 GHz. Packaging and interconnects are discussed and as an alternative to wire bonding, flip-chip assembly tests are presented and discussed. System measurements are also described where bit error rate (BER) and eye diagrams are measured when the presented TX and RX MMICs transmits and receives a modulated signal. A data rate of 1.5 Gb/s with simple ASK modulation was achieved, restricted by the measurement setup rather than the TX and RX MMICs. These tests indicate that the presented MMICs are especially well suited for transmission and reception of wireless signals at data rates of several Gb/s

Single-Chip 220-GHz Active Heterodyne Receiver and Transmitter MMICs With On-Chip Integrated Antenna

This paper presents the design and characterization of single-chip 220-GHz heterodyne receiver (RX) and transmitter (TX) monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) with integrated antennas fabricated in 0.1- μm GaAs metamorphic high electron-mobility transistor technology. The MMIC receiver consists of a modified square-slot antenna, a three-stage low-noise amplifier, and a sub-harmonically pumped resistive mixer with on-chip local oscillator frequency multiplication chain. The transmitter chip is the dual of the receiver chip by inverting the direction of the RF amplifier. The chips are mounted on 5-mm silicon lenses in order to interface the antenna to the free space and are packaged into two separate modules.

Fully integrated 60-GHz single-ended resistive mixer in 90-nm CMOS technology

This letter presents the design and characterization of a fully integrated 60-GHz single-ended resistive mixer in a 90-nm CMOS technology. A conversion loss of 11.6dB, 1-dB compression point of 6dBm and IIP3 of 16.5dBm were measured with a local oscillator (LO) power of 4dBm and zero drain bias. The possibility of improvement in IIP3 with selective drain bias has been verified. A 3-dB improvement in IIP3 was obtained with 150-mV dc voltage applied at the drain. Microstrip transmission lines are used to realize matching and filtering at LO and radio frequency ports

Lumped-element quadrature power splitters using mixed right/left-handed transmission lines

This paper presents the design of lumped quadrature power splitters (LQPSs) based on unit cells of right-handed (RH) and left-handed (LH) synthetic transmission lines (TLs). The LQPSs include a lumped Wilkinson splitter, with phase-adjusting RH/LH TLs at the outputs. Two topologies, considered to be advantageous with regards to size and electric characteristics, are studied in detail. For these two, closed-form design equations are derived and the performances are analyzed by circuit simulations. The theory and simulation results are experimentally validated by monolithic-microwave integrated-circuit prototypes designed for a center frequency of 2.5 GHz. Both prototypes have performance that agree well with theory and design simulations. Within the frequency range of 2-3 GHz, the maximum amplitude and phase errors are less than 0.3 dB and 3/spl deg/, respectively. All reflections and the isolation are better than -10 dB. The effective areas of the two prototypes are 900/spl times/700 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ and 720/spl times/520 /spl mu/m/sup 2/, respectively.

A 220 GHz (G-Band) Microstrip MMIC Single-Ended Resistive Mixer

This letter presents the design and characterization of a 220 GHz microstrip monolithic microwave integrated circuit single-ended resistive mixer in a 0.1 GaAs mHEMT technology. A conversion loss as low as 8.7 dB is obtained, limited by the available local oscillator (LO) power (1.5 dBm) in the measurement setup. The radio frequency (RF) bandwidth is also limited by the measurement setup, but the mixer demonstrates a flat response over the measured 200 to 220 GHz frequency range. Furthermore, measured intermediate frequency bandwidth, 1-dB input compression point, LO-to-RF isolation, and reflection coefficients are presented and discussed.

340 GHz Integrated Receiver in 250 nm InP DHBT Technology

A 340 GHz integrated receiver based on a 250 nm InP DHBT technology is presented in this paper. It consists of a 2 × 2 differential patch array antenna, a sub-harmonically pumped Gilbert mixer and an IF buffer amplifier. Performance of the integrated receiver is evaluated by setting up a RF link in the frequency band of 302-338 GHz. At 338 GHz RF and 170 GHz LO, the peak conversion gain of 11.8 and 14.0 dB is achieved with and without antenna, respectively. A double-sideband noise figure of 17 dB at room temperature is obtained from direct noise figure measurement .

Analysis and Design of a Novel

In this paper, a novel topology of an HEMT-based subharmonically pumped resistive mixer (SHPRM) is presented, i.e., the times4SHPRM. The presented topology requires only a quarter of the local oscillator (LO) frequency compared to a fundamentally pumped mixer (e.g., 15 instead of 60 GHz in a 60-GHz system). This reduction in required LO frequency provides a significant reduction in complexity of the overall radio front-end and reduces the dc power consumption as well as the occupied chip area. Thus, the times4SHPRM provides a significant cost reduction for a millimeter-wave system. Furthermore, the times4SHPRM can be used for both up- and down-conversion and it can be implemented in any field-effect transistor technology. The principle of the times4SHPRM is presented and wave analysis is applied in order to investigate the fundamental limitations of this mixer topology. For an evaluation of the times4SHPRM topology, three different monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) were designed and manufactured in the same MMIC metamorphic HEMT technology. Besides measured performance of the times4SHPRM, a traditional times2SHPRM and a single-ended resistive mixer were implemented and their performances are presented and compared. All of these MMICs operate with a 60-GHz RF frequency and employ LO signals close to 15, 30, and 60 GHz, respectively.

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Two ultra wideband millimeterwave single balanced resistive mixers utilizing a Marchand balun for the LO-hybrid are simulated, fabricated and characterized for 30-60 GHz in both up and down conversion. Two different versions of the mixer were manufactured in a commercial pHEMT-MMIC and a mHEMT-MMIC process respectively. A measured down conversion loss of approximately 6 to 12 dB over the whole band is obtained for both versions of the mixer with external IF power combining. In spite of the balanced design, the required LO power is quite low, 2 dBm is sufficient for low conversion loss. The LO-RF isolation is excellent, often more than 30 dB for both type of mixers. Low noise figure and high IIP3 figures are obtained. It is also shown that by applying selective drain bias, up to 5 dB improvement of IIP3 can be obtained for the mHEMT mixer with small LO powers.

4 Subharmonically Pumped Resistive HEMT Mixer

Single-chip 60 GHz transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) MMICs have been designed and characterized in a 0.15 mum, ~120 GHz fT/> 200 GHz fMAX GaAs mHEMT MMIC process. This paper describes the second generation of single-chip TX and RX MMICs developed in our group. Compared to our first designs in a commercial pHEMT technology, the MMICs presented in this paper show the same high level of integration but occupy smaller chip area and have higher gain and output power at only half of the DC power consumption. The system operates with an LO signal in the range 7-8 GHz. This LO signal is multiplied in an integrated multiply-by-eight (times8) LO chain, resulting in an IF center frequency of 2.5 GHz. The single chip TX MMIC consists of a balanced resistive mixer with an integrated ultra wideband IF balun, a three-stage amplifier and the times8 LO chain. The times8 is a multifunction design by itself consisting of a quadrupler, a feed back amplifier, a doubler, and a buffer amplifier. The TX chip delivers 4.1 plusmn 1.5 dBm over an RF frequency range of 56.5 to 64.5 GHz. The peak output power is 5.6 dBm measured at 60 GHz and the overall TX chip consumes 420 mW of DC power. The single chip RX MMIC contains a three-stage low noise amplifier, an image reject mixer with an integrated ultra wideband IF hybrid and the same times8 as used in the TX chip. The RX chip has more than 10.7 dB gain between 54.5 and 64.5 GHz and more than 13 dB of image rejection ratio between 57.5 and 67.5 GHz with a peak image rejection ratio of 22.5 dB at 64 GHz. The input referred third order intercept point, IIP3 is measured to -10 dBm at 60 GHz and the overall RX chip consumes 450 mW of DC power