Millimeter wave band reconfigurable circuits (from 30 to above 100 ghz) in bicmos-mems technology
- Autores: Julio Cesar Heredia Vega
- Directores de la Tesis: Lluis Pradell Cara (dir. tes.), Mehmet Kaynak (codir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) ( España ) en 2019
- Idioma: español
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: David Girbau Sala (presid.), Antoni Barlabé i Dalmau (secret.), Beatriz Aja Abelán (voc.)
- Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Teoría de la Señal y Comunicaciones por la Universidad Politécnica de Catalunya
- Materias:
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- Resumen
Nowadays, there has been an increased use of mobile devices and growth in the need for information, and because of this, wireless systems with higher data rates and wider bandwidths are demanded every year. Additionally, multi-applications systems need to operate at several frequency bands, which brings the need for compact frequency-reconfigurable devices.
In order to offer solutions for the demands mentioned above, in this Thesis, compact frequency-reconfigurable low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) using RF-MEMS and HBT based switches for frequencies above 100 GHz are presented for the first time. Multimodal coupled microstrip and three-line microstrip (TLM) structures are implemented in the amplifier matching networks to achieve more-compact designs.
To demonstrate the potentialities of the TLM structures, a novel compact multimodal TLM impedance tuner is presented. It features a Smith-chart impedance coverage of 70% in a large frequency bandwidth (1.4 to 3.2 GHz). The impedance tuner uses variable capacitors implemented with varactors to create asymmetries in the structure and interactions among the three-line microstrip modes. This results in an increase of the equivalent electrical size of the circuit thus reducing the overall physical size of the impedance tuner.
Three frequency-reconfigurable D-band compact BiCMOS LNAs have been designed. The three designs consist of two cascode stages and were fabricated using a 0.13 µm SiGe:C BiCMOS process which includes an embedded RF-MEMS switch module. The first and second LNA designs operate at 125/140 GHz, while the third design operates at 125/143 GHz. The area of the designs is minimized by using only one RF-MEMS switch to select the frequency band and multimodal structures (a coupled microstrip structure and a TLM structure in the input matching networks of the first and third design respectively). A systematic design method to obtain balanced gain and noise figure for both frequency states is presented.
An even more compact 120/140 GHz LNA design is accomplished by using an HBT-based switch instead of a RF-MEMS switch. It was fabricated with the same 0.13 µm SiGe:C BiCMOS process and using the same multimodal TLM structure in the input matching network as the third design mentioned above.
The measurements of all the LNAs are in good agreement with the obtained simulations thus validating all the circuit designs and the systematic design method.
