Yu Ye

High-Efficiency Micromachined Sub-THz Channels for Low-Cost Interconnect for Planar Integrated Circuits

This paper presents for the first time the design, fabrication, and demonstration of a micromachined silicon dielectric waveguide based sub-THz interconnect channel for a high-efficiency, low-cost sub-THz interconnect, aiming to solve the long-standing intrachip/interchip interconnect problem. Careful studies of the loss mechanisms in the proposed sub-THz interconnect channel are carried out to optimize the design. Both theoretical and experimental results are provided with good agreement. To guide the channel design, a new figure of merit is also defined. The insertion loss of this first prototype with a 6-mm-long interconnect channel is about 8.4 dB at 209.7 GHz, with a 3-dB bandwidth of 12.6 GHz.

Low-loss and Broadband G-Band Dielectric Interconnect for Chip-to-Chip Communication

This paper presents a novel dielectric waveguide based G-band interconnect. By using a new transition of microstrip line to dielectric waveguide, the interconnect achieves low insertion loss and wide bandwidth. The measured minimum insertion loss is 4.9 dB with 9.7 GHz 1-dB bandwidth. Besides, the structure is based on standard micromachined processing and easy to integrate with conventional packaging.

A High Efficiency E-Band CMOS Frequency Doubler With a Compensated Transformer-Based Balun for Matching Enhancement

This letter presents a broadband high efficiency frequency doubler based on a new and effective compensation technique. A transformer based input balun achieves good balanced performance and input matching by the newly invented central capacitor based compensation technique. It demonstrates a peak conversion gain (CG) of -2.5 dB and peak efficiency of 9.7% with a saturated output power of 2.5 dBm at 74 GHz. The doubler exhibits a 3 dB CG bandwidth of 28 GHz from 62 to 90 GHz. The fundamental rejection is larger than 20 dB. The doubler is fabricated in a 65 nm CMOS technology with chip area of 0.6×0.45 mm2 and consumes 9-14 mW power.

A CMOS millimeter-wave transceiver embedded in a semi-confocal Fabry-Perot cavity for molecular spectroscopy

The extension of radio frequency complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) circuitry into millimeter wavelengths promises the extension of spectroscopic techniques in compact, power efficient systems. We are now beginning to use CMOS millimeter devices for low-mass, low-power instrumentation capable of remote or in situ detection of gas composition during space missions. We have chosen to develop a Flygare-Balle type spectrometer, with a semi-confocal Fabry-Perot cavity to amplify the pump power of a mm-wavelength CMOS transmitter that is directly coupled to the planar mirror of the cavity. We have built a pulsed transceiver system at 92-105 GHz inside a 3 cm base length cavity and demonstrated quality factor up to 4680, allowing for modes with 20 MHz bandwidth, with a sufficient cavity amplification factor for mW class transmitters. This work describes the initial gas measurements and outlines the challenges and next steps.

A 165-GHz Transmitter With 10.6% Peak DC-to-RF Efficiency and 0.68-pJ/b Energy Efficiency in 65-nm Bulk CMOS

This paper presents a high-efficiency 165-GHz ON-OFF keying transmitter in a 65-nm CMOS technology with the record efficiency to the best of our knowledge. This is due to the proposed holistic design and optimization procedure, which links all the performance and figure-of-merits to the device sizes, including both actives and passives. This transmitter includes a high-efficiency transformer-based fundamental frequency cross-coupled oscillator and a high-speed and high ON-OFF ratio single-pole single-throw switch-based modulator. The transmitter demonstrates the highest dc-to-RF efficiency (10.6%) beyond 140 GHz in silicon processes, with a high output power (0.66 dBm), a high ON-OFF ratio (>32 dB), and a low phase noise (-104.8 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset). The transmitter achieves 9.4-Gbps data rate of less than 1 × 10-12 bit error rate with 0.68-pJ/b energy efficiency. The standalone oscillator also demonstrates the record dc-to-RF efficiency of 25.9% beyond 140 GHz in silicon processes. The transmitter consumes core area of 240 μm × 130 μm.

A 165GHz OOK transmitter with 10.6% peak DC-to-RF efficiency in 65nm bulk CMOS

This paper presents a high efficiency 165 GHz OOK transmitter on a 65nm CMOS technology, including a transformer impedance optimization based fundamental cross-coupled oscillator followed by a high-speed and high on-off ratio SPST switch based modulator. The transmitter demonstrates the highest DC-to-RF efficiency (10.6%) beyond 140 GHz in silicon processes, with a high output power (0.66 dBm), a high on-off ratio (> 32 dB) and a low phase noise (-105.4 dBc/Hz @ 1 MHz offset). The standalone oscillator also demonstrates the record DC-to-RF efficiency of 25.9% beyond 140 GHz in silicon processes. The transmitter is designed compact with the core area of 240 μm × 130 μm.

A W-Band 65nm CMOS/InP-hybrid radiometer & passive imager

This paper presents a 90-100 GHz heterodyne radiometer module based on a CMOS receiver system-on-chip (SoC). The SoC contains a frequency synthesizer, downconverter, RF&IF amplification, as well as a wide range of auto-leveling and calibration, and LO stabilization functions. To provide low-noise operation the CMOS SoC is packaged within a waveguide block and mated with an InP MMIC based LNA pre-amplifier. The complete module delivers noise performance below 400°K and is capable of less than 0.5K NEΔT with an integration time of 50 ms. The entire radiometer instrument consumes 257mW of power and weighs only 334 grams.

Sub-THz interconnect channel for planar chip-to-chip communication

This article presents the dielectric waveguide based sub-THz interconnect channels for high bandwidth-density and high energy-efficiency chip-to-chip communications. Both far-field and near-field transition based channels are analyzed and demonstrated. The insertion losses of the interconnect with far-field transitions and near-field transitions are about 8.4 dB with 12.6 GHz 3-dB bandwidth and 4.0 dB with 59 GHz 3-dB bandwidth, respectively.

The V-band CMOS multi-frequency transmitter for plasma imaging radar reflectometric diagnostics

In this work, we present a multi-frequency illumination transmitter for microwave imaging radar reflectometry (MIR) diagnostics of thermonuclear fusion plasmas. The transmitter is able to illuminate 8 tones simultaneously. To improve the power amplifier stability, the cross-coupled capacitor based neutralization technique is adopted. Diplexer based power combining is first adopted to realize heterogeneous frequency power combining. Each of the 8 frequencies demonstrates more than 0 dBm of saturation power tunable from 62 to 78 GHz. The transmitter features multiple mixers and power amplifiers for power boosting of each frequency. The entire transmitter occupies 2.14 mm2 chip area and dissipates about 733 mW.

A compact 213 GHz CMOS fundamental oscillator with 0.56 mW output power and 3.9% efficiency using a capacitive transformer

This paper presents a compact 213 GHz fundamental oscillator with an optimal embedding network that maximizes the output power. Fabricated in 65-nm bulk CMOS, the oscillator occupies a core area of only 70×40 pm2, owing to the use of a compact low-loss capacitive transformer structure. The oscillator achieves 0.56-mW output power while consuming a DC current of 14.35 mA from a 1-V power supply, representing a recording-breaking DC-to-RF efficiency of 3.9% amongst fundamental oscillators above 200 GHz.