Transformer Design for 77-GHz Down-Converter in 28-nm FD-SOI CMOS Technology (original) (raw)

Design and characterization of CMOS millimeter-wave transformers

2009 SBMO/IEEE MTT-S International Microwave and Optoelectronics Conference (IMOC), 2009

A comprehensive analysis of the impact of geometric parameters on the design of millimeter-wave integrated transformers is presented. Transformers presenting the same stacked topology but different diameters and trace widths were fabricated in a 65 nm CMOS technology and their performance was compared in terms of inductance, quality-factors, coupling coefficient and minimum insertion loss. Results of electromagnetic simulation and measurement are exposed, showing an excellent agreement in a wide frequency band. It is observed that transformers with different diameters present similar performances but different resonance frequencies, whereas transformers with wider traces can present better minimum insertion loss results.

Integrated RF transformer and power combiner design in 150nm CMOS process

2014 9th European Microwave Integrated Circuit Conference, 2014

An integrated passive power combiner is discussed and characterized based on test structure fabricated in a 150 nm LFoundry CMOS process. The power combiner uses differentially driven coupled transformers as a basic building block. We discuss first the constraint driven sythesis of the transformer itself and the device modeling with a rapid RLCk model extractor. Helic's electronic design automation (EDA) tools are used for both, synthesis and extraction of the passive devices. The accuracy of the extracted transformer model is proven by comparison to an EM tool. The fabricated power combiner structure is finally extracted with the same EDA toolset and compared to measured data from on-wafer experiments. Good agreement is achieved in all cases proving the accuracy of the proposed synthesis and extraction methodology for complex RF IC designs.

Low power and high gain double-balanced mixer dedicated to 77 GHz automotive radar applications

2010 Proceedings of ESSCIRC, 2010

In this paper, we present a mixer implemented in a 130 nm BiCMOS technology dedicated to 77 GHz automotive radar applications. The architecture is based on a doublebalanced Gilbert cell with integrated transformer-based Baluns. Interconnections between devices, capacitor accesses and Teejunctions are modeled using EM software in order to improve the simulation accuracy. The measurement results of the circuit exhibit a conversion gain and a SSB noise figure of 18.5 dB and 13.8 dB respectively over a 74 to 81 GHz band. Supplied under 2.5 V the power consumption is 80 mW and the ICP1 is -13 dBm. The transformer-based Balun allows a good input matching at the RF input port over a 16 GHz range from 72 to 88 GHz.

A CMOS 77-GHz Receiver Front-End for Automotive Radar

IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, 2000

This paper presents the design of a receiver (Rx) front-end for automotive radar application operating at 76-77 GHz. The Rx employs a double conversion architecture, which consists of a five-stage low-noise amplifier (LNA), a sub-harmonic mixer (SHM), and a double-balanced passive mixer (PSM). By adopting this architecture, millimeter-wave frequency synthesizer design can be relaxed. In the LNA layout, the output of each stage is positioned close to the input of the follow stage, thus creating a resonance load. As a result, complex interstage matching networks is simplified. The SHM driven by a 38-GHz local oscillator (LO) is adopted to avoid push/pull effect and power consumption of the voltage-controlled oscillator. A PSM is utilized for the second conversion since it consumes no dc current and has low flickering noise. To connect the singled-ended LNA and SHM, a 77-GHz balun is designed; and for driving the SHM, two 38-GHz baluns and an in-phase/quadrature coupler to provide quadrature 38-GHz LO are designed. The proposed Rx is implemented in a 65-nm CMOS technology and measurement results show 16-dB voltage gain and 13-dB calculated noise figure while dissipating 23.5 mA from a black 1.2-V supply. Index Terms-Balun, in-phase/quadrature (IQ) coupler, low-noise amplifier (LNA), passive mixer (PSM), receiver (Rx) front-end, 77-GHz CMOS radar, sub-harmonic mixer (SHM). I. INTRODUCTION T ODAY, automotive radar systems are widely installed in many transportation vehicles to assist driving safety and comfort. These systems provide drivers with information about distance between the vehicles and any other vehicles, as well as obstacles present on the road. The radar systems can take a further step into automatically controlling the accelerate/brake system of the vehicles to avoid any crashing accidents.

A 23-dBm 60-GHz Distributed Active Transformer in a Silicon Process Technology

—In this paper, a distributed active transformer for the operation in the millimeter-wave frequency range is presented. The transformer utilizes stacked coupled wires as opposed to slab inductors to achieve a high coupling factor of = 0 8 at 60 GHz. Scalable and compact equivalent-circuit models are used for the transformer design without the need for full-wave electromagnetic simulations. To demonstrate the feasibility of the millimeter-wave transformer, a 200-mW (23 dBm) 60-GHz power amplifier has been implemented in a standard 130-nm SiGe process technology, which, to date, is the highest reported output power in an SiGe process technology at millimeter-wave frequencies. The size of the output transformer is only 160 160 m 2 and demonstrates the feasibility of efficient power combining and impedance transformation at millimeter-wave frequencies. The two-stage amplifier has 13 dB of compressed gain and achieves a power-added efficiency of 6.4% while combining the power of eight cascode amplifiers into a differential 100-load. The amplifier supply voltage is 4 V with a quiescent current consumption of 300 mA. Index Terms—Distributed active transformer (DAT), millimeter wave, on-chip power combining, power amplifier (PA), silicon ger-manium (SiGe), wireless communication.

Advanced silicon MMICs for mm wave automotive radar front ends

2015

This work presents a high-linearity automotive radar front-end at 77 GHz in 0.25 μm SiGe technology. The passive elements are realized using thin-film microstrip lines. A detailed transformer balun synthesis procedure was developed. The realized passive baluns (“rat-race” and transformer) show excellent common-mode rejection ratios exceeding 30 dB and low losses of 2.5 dB. On the active side, a low-gain, high-linearity single stage common-emitter LNA was realized. The selected topology allowed finer trade-off between linearity and sensitivity of the front-end compared to multi-stage LNA solutions. For the mixer, a low voltage supply, high-linearity, low-noise double-balanced concept was employed. It uses AC-coupling between the two stages, which allowed an independent optimization of transconductance, core sizing and bias: the transconductance was designed for best noise performance, while the core was chosen for maximum linearity. A high-fidelity two-channel receiver was realized u...

Shielding structures for millimeter-wave integrated transformers

2009 16th IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits and Systems - (ICECS 2009), 2009

Shielding structures intended to improve the performance of millimeter-wave transformers are presented. The loss mechanisms of the components are discussed and the losses related to the silicon substrate are shown to be the most relevant. A patterned ground shield and a floating shield are detailed and their influences in terms of inductance, quality-factors, coupling coefficients and minimum insertion loss are

A 1-V 7th-Order SC Low-Pass Filter for 77-GHz Automotive Radar in 28-nm FD-SOI CMOS

Electronics

This paper presents a switched capacitor low-pass filter in a 28-nm fully depleted silicon on insulator CMOS technology for 77-GHz automotive radar applications. It is operated at a power supply as low as 1 V and guarantees 5-dB in-band voltage gain while providing out-of-band attenuation higher than 36 dB and a programmable passband up to 30 MHz. A double sampling technique is adopted, which allows high operating frequency to be achieved while saving power. Moreover, low-voltage biasing and common-mode feedback circuits are exploited to guarantee an almost rail-to-rail output voltage swing. The proposed filter provides an output 1-dB compression point as high as 8.7 dBm with a power consumption of 9 mW. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first SC-based implementation of a low pass filter for automotive radar applications.

Design methodology for the optimization of transformer-loaded RF circuits

IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers, 2006

In this paper, a design methodology for the optimization of transformer-loaded RF circuits is presented. The optimization procedure is based on a novel figure of merit for the integrated transformer (namely the transformer characteristic resistance), which was introduced to quantify its performance when operated as a tuned load. Using the proposed approach, a highly linear up-converter for 5-GHz wireless LAN applications was implemented in a 45-GHz-T SiGe HBT technology. The circuit achieved an output 1-dB compression point of 4.5 dBm and a power gain of 18 dB, while drawing only 34 mA from a 3-V power supply.