Technical Sessions	/
Sunday 4 June
Monday 5 June
Tuesday 6 June
Wednesday 7 June
Thursday 8 June
Friday 9 June
SSB:
Principles of Solid-State Microwave and RF Control for Circuit Reconfigurability
Robert Caverly, Art Morris
Organizer organization:
Villanova Univ., WiSpry
This short course will cover the basics of Microwave and RF Control using PIN diodes, FETs and MEMS devices. The goal of the course is to provide engineers enough of an overview of the topic to be able to design, simulate and implement simple control and other reconfigurable circuits using commercial off the shelf components to fulfill their design requirements. An introduction to CAD models for the devices will be covered as part of the design flow goal. This workshop is intended to be a crash course for microwave engineers in the field of RF/microwave control/reconfigurability device technologies. The course covers the basic principles illustrated with examples from advanced practice in applications such as reconfigurable switches, attenuators and filters/tuning networks in such applications pertaining to communications and magnetic resonance imaging.
WSI:
Frontiers of Superconducting and Cryogenic Microwave Electronics
Michael C. Hamilton, Daniel E. Oates
Auburn Univ., MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Recent years have seen renewed interest and increase in efforts directed towards development of technology for high-frequency (microwave and beyond) and high-speed superconducting and cryogenic electronics systems. The discovery of superconductivity is recognized as an IEEE Milestone in Electrical and Computer Engineering and has made possible many important applications across a wide range of disciplines. Cryogenic electronics holds the promise of high performance and super-low energy per operation for computing applications that can take us beyond the end of the semiconducting technology roadmap. Driven by goals of ultra-high speed computing and signal processing, super-sharp and low-loss filters, higher performance MRI/NMR systems and integration with computing or imaging systems that must be cryogenically cooled due to noise constraints, there is a growing interest in active and passive microwave components designed for operation at low temperatures. Historically, despite the potential of higher performance from cryogenic components and systems, conventional technologies have provided sufficient performance. There are, however, reasons to believe that this situation may change in the near future. As one example, consider the case of superconducting quantum computing, where communication between qubits occurs through signals in the microwave regime and where the noise constraints are of utmost importance. Proper communication, control and integration of systems such as this will require superconducting and cryogenic microwave technology advancements that are now in development. This workshop aims to provide a sufficiently detailed description and platform for discussion of the current status and future of superconducting and semiconducting electronics for cryogenic systems. Talks in this workshop will cover: RF MEMS + superconducting filters, HTS filters, superconducting filters for resonance imaging systems, advances in superconducting microwave technology in Japan and China, superconducting microwave interconnect technology, recent superconducting device technology developments for mixed-signal circuits, recent cryogenic semiconducting device technology developments and cryogenic electronics for quantum computing systems.
Presentations in this session
WSI-1	: Prospect of Cryogenic Digital Technology
Akira Fujimaki
Akira Fujimaki, Nagoya Univ.
Superconducting digital technology has made rapid strides in recent years. Energy-efficient single flux quantum (SFQ) circuits have been proposed so far and complicated circuits like a microprocessor have been demonstrated at several tens of GHz. For example, our group successfully demonstrated 100 GHz operation of a bit-serial microprocessor based on the multiple-voltage SFQ (MV-SFQ) circuit. In addition, we designed a RISC-based MV-SFQ microprocessor with an embedded instruction and data memory, and confirmed execution of all the instructions stored in the instruction memory. Note that these circuits are designed based on the SFQ-specific CAD tools in a digital domain and sometimes based on a microwave simulator for analog components. Furthermore, the introduction of ferromagnetic materials to devices or circuits, the invention of superconducting nano-devices, and the combination with CMOS integrated circuits enhance flexibility of the analog circuits as well as digital circuits and lead to technological innovation. Almost all the remaining issues such as large capacity memories, rectifiers, will be overcome by using these technologies. Superconducting digital technology is now transformed into cryogenic digital technology. Although the above-mentioned technologies are based on Nb or NbN films, I will give some comments on the importance of high-temperature-superconductor (HTS) films. In fact, the waveguides made of HTS films are essential for, broadband communications with ultra-low heat inflow between a 1st stage and a 2nd stage of a cryocooler. HTS analog active nanodevices would be attractive for an amplifier operating around 50 K.
WSI-2	: Superconducting Microwave Mixed-Signal Circuits
Deepnarayan Gupta
Deepnarayan Gupta, HYPRES, Inc., USA
Superconductor integrated circuits (ICs), built with niobium Josephson junctions (JJs), offer an attractive combination of features for mixed-signal electronics up to frequencies above 100 GHz. In these circuits, conversion between analog and digital domains can be done with high fidelity, by exploiting magnetic flux quantization, and at high speed. Niobium JJs have picosecond switching times and enable sampling rates above 100 GHz. This fast and accurate analog-to-digital conversion function is strengthened by the ability to integrate ultrafast, low-power digital circuits and low-loss analog circuits on the same chip. These features give rise to a class of mixed-signal circuits for a diversity of applications, ranging from communications to quantum computing. Among these are software radio and digital radar applications which benefit from digital signal processing applied directly on digitized radio frequency (RF) waveforms. On the other hand, the same technology applies to reading out cryogenic detectors and qubits. In this paper, we describe the current state-of-the-art of digital-RF systems, featuring superconductor mixed-signal circuits. The latest generation of these robust cryocooled systems are modular and have been operated for a variety of applications over the last four years. In these systems, the function of superconductor mixed-signal ICs is augmented by semiconductor cryogenic and room-temperature electronics. We also describe the next generation of superconductor ICs that are faster and feature much higher integration density and complexity. Finally, microwave design challenges will be discussed in two critical areas: (1) interchip interconnects for analog signals and picosecond-wide single flux quantum (SFQ) pulses supporting rates above 100 GHz , and (2) generation, distribution and synchronization of clock signals also above 100 GHz.
WSI-3	: Developments in China for the Design and Application of High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) Filters
Yusheng He
Yusheng He, Chinese Academy of Sciences
In recent years, great efforts have been devoted to the research and development of high temperature superconducting (HTS) filters in China. Novel HTS filter design technologies were well developed including those in coupling matrix extraction, wide stop band realization, liner phase, multiplexer, multi-band and multi-mode designs, and frequency tunable filters. Based on these techniques, high performance HTS filters were constructed and excellent specifications were achieved, e.g., 0.05 dB minimum insertion loss, -23 dB return loss, -110 dB out-of-band rejection and 220 dB/MHz band-edge slope, etc., which are among the best results in the literatures. Applications of HTS filters are also successful. A demonstration wireless communication cluster with HTS filter subsystems was built in the urban area of Beijing. Each base transceiver station (BTS) was installed with an HTS filter subsystem consisting of six HTS filters with the same performance. The measurement results show a 2.35 dB decrease of mobile phone mean transmit power when the normal filter subsystems were replaced by HTS filter subsystems. Based on the success in constructing an HTS filter handling high power up to 11.7 W, one of the highest records in the literature, the world first HTS transceiver was constructed, which was installed in a 3rd generation TD-SCDMA base station (it works in TDD mode, i.e., the receiving and emitting signals use the same frequency channel). Field trial in commercial network showed excellent improvements in reducing bit error (80%), enhancing anti-interference (10 dBm), restricting spurious power in emitting signals (26 dBm), and also in receiving quality of video communications. Field trial for the 4th generation mobile communication systems (e.g. TD-LTE) is now being carried out and results will be reported in the symposium. Another interesting application is to radar system, e.g., the meteorological radar, which is sometimes paralyzed by heavy electromagnetic interference in urban area due to the lack of extremely narrow bandwidth pre-selective filters. Laboratory tests proved that, with HTS subsystem, improvements of sensitivity (3.8 dB) and interference rejection (48.4 dB) have been achieved. A demonstration HTS meteorological radar station was then set up in Beijing. Comparison measurements showed that due to interference, the conventional wind profiler could not attain stable and reliable wind profiles above 1500m where the echoes are weak. In contrast, the HTS wind profiler provided complete and coincident wind profiles up to 3500 m. In poor weather conditions or severe electromagnetic environment, the conventional wind profiler almost stopped working, while the HTS wind profiler functioned well, and complete wind profile data on both the time scale and the spatial scale could be obtained by using the HTS wind profiler. The third application is to radio astronomy and deep space detection. HTS filters were deployed in the ground stations of Chinese lunar exploration project, which played an important role in monitoring the mission of Chang'e No. 3 satellite. Finally, applications in space technology are most challenging and attractive. In 2005, the first ground test system showed that a reduction of 73% in noise temperature was obtained by substituting HTS front-end for its conventional counterpart. On October 14, 2012, the HTS experimental system was successfully launched into orbit as a payload of a civil experimental satellite for new technologies (Practice No 9). The received on-orbit experimental data showed that the HTS system worked perfect in the past years. This is the world second successful space experiment for HTS devices after the American's HTSSE. Application of HTS filter front-end in a space science project is also ready for space mission with Chinese Space Laboratory, to be launched in mid September, 2016.
WSI-4	: MEMS-Based Superconductor Tunable Filters
Raafat R. Mansour
Raafat R. Mansour, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
The Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) technology has the potential of replacing many radio frequency (RF) and microwave components used in today's communication systems. In particular, the use of RF MEMS in the reconfigurable filters would not only reduce substantially the size, weight but also promise linearity performance that is far superior to other technologies. The ability to integrate MEMS with superconductor filters promise to realize tunable filters with an unprecedented performance. The talk will address the behaviour of RF MEMS switches at cryogenic temperatures illustrating their use in the realization of superconductive tunable filters.
WSI-5	: Microwave Surface Resistance of Ion-Implanted YBCO Thin Films in High Magnetic Field and Development of NMR Pickup Coils Using YBCO Thin Films
Shigetoshi Ohshima
Shigetoshi Ohshima, Yamagata University, Japan
Recently, microwave devices of the high-temperature superconducting thin film operating in a high magnetic field have been studied. In such applications, it is necessary to create a thin film with a low microwave surface resistance (Rs) under a high magnetic field. The introduction of artificial pins (Aps) in YBa2Cu3O7 (YBCO) thin film is useful to reduce the Rs in high magnetic fields. We examined the formation of APS by ion implantation of Si, Mo and In ions. We found that Rs of ion-implanted YBCO thin films could be reduced to about one-quarter of the non-irradiated YBCO thin films. We also examined the APs structure by positron annihilation life time spectroscopy. As a result APs was found to be a vacancy of about 0.5nm3. We developed a prototype 700MHzNMR pickup coil made by YBCO thin films. The sensitivity of NMR could be improved by using YBCO pickup coil compared with using a conventional NMR pickup coil. It is expected to improve further sensitivity by using the ion-implanted YBCO thin film, and we are currently considering it.
WSI-6	: Cryogenic Hardware at the Quantum - Classical Interface
David Reilly
David Reilly, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Quantum information processing devices are now sufficiently advanced to imagine scaling up this technology into complex, multicomponent systems. This transition, from quantum devices to quantum machines will require the development of new cryogenic electronic platforms operating at 4 kelvin and below. This talk will outline efforts to develop cryo-CMOS and SiGe circuits for controlling and reading out scaled-up quantum machines.
WSI-7	: Flexible Superconducting Microwave Transmission Line Interconnects
Michael C Hamilton
Michael C Hamilton, Auburn University, Auburn, AL USA
Flexible and robust superconducting microwave transmission line cables are an enabling technology for densely integrated cryogenic electronics systems. Currently, single co-axial transmission lines are bulky and often limit integration density due to volume and thermal load constraints. We will discuss the current status of our research and development efforts to construct and characterize multi-conductor superconducting flexible cables made using thin-film processing techniques. Trade-offs and performance of various materials stack-ups will be discussed. Characterization has been performed using transmission line and resonator geometries from temperatures of approximately 9 K down to 20 mK. These cables show great promise as interconnect structures in future superconducting and cryogenic electronics systems, including superconducting quantum computing applications.
WSK:
Highly Digital CMOS Transmitters With Embedded Power Amplifiers
Jeffrey Walling, Hua Wang
Univ. of Utah, Georgia Institute of Technology
In recent years, RF front-end transmitters with direct digital interfaces have become common for low-to-moderate power wireless systems (e.g. Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc.). These transmitters include up-conversion, filtering and output power amplifier stages. They are capable of generating ~1 W of output power with very good total system efficiency. Furthermore, they provide flexibility for software defined systems that allow quick re-configuration via software programming. Additionally, they are compact, often requiring areas less than 1mm2. In this workshop we will examine three main types of digital transmitters: outphasing based pulse-width modulation, switched-capacitor power amplifiers and current-mode digital power amplifiers. Additionally, there are many different architectures that utilize each of the above topologies, including class-G, polar, outphasing and multiphase. The presenters will provide examples of these architectures and provide insight into their designs and the scenarios in which their use is optimal.
WSK-1	: A Switched Capacitor Power Amplification Technique for Energy- and Area-Efficient Wireless Transmitters
Sangmin Yoo
Sangmin Yoo, Michigan State Univ.
In the era of internet of things (IoT) and wireless communication, energy- and area-efficient wireless transceivers are critical for extended battery life and small form factor of many systems. On the other hand, innovations in analog circuits have been driven by rapidly evolving semiconductor technology in line with Moore's law. A switched capacitor power amplification (SCPA) technique, based on RF switched capacitor digital-to-analog converter architecture, offers very high energy efficiency and superior linearity for wireless transmitters. The measured peak Pout and power-added-efficiency (PAE) of a prototype SCPA are 25.2 dBm and 45%, respectively. For 802.11g 64-QAM OFDM modulated signal, the average Pout and PAE are 17.7 dBm and 27%, respectively, and the measured EVM is 2.6%. Class-G technique can be applied to SCPA to further enhance the efficiency. With additional supply voltage and advanced switching scheme for multiple supply voltages, the measured peak Pout and PAE are 24.3 dBm and 43.5%, respectively, whereas the average Pout and PAE are 16.8 dBm and 33%, respectively, for 802.11g signals. The measured EVM is 2.9% without any predistortion applied.
WSK-2	: RF Transmitter Based on Cartesian RFDAC
Bumman Kim, Hadong Jin
Bumman Kim, Postech University
Recently, we have developed a transmitter based on RFDAC. A three-level LO clock is employed to improve the digitizing efficiency and to combine I and Q signals in time domain. Since the signals are in a single stream, I and Q signals could be up-converted using the one sampling mixer, realizing I/Q sharing structure. The mixer thermo-code element pairs whose output powers are internally cancelled, are disabled to reduce the power consumption. The resulting RFDAC provides the efficiency comparable to the polar transmitter without using a Cordic. The output powers of the mixer elements are amplified by inverters and the final powers of the cells are combined using a capacitor array similarly to the switched capacitor DAC. To reduce the thermo-code elements, the data is processed only in the first quadrant and is rotated to the original position. A dual Vdd structure is also employed. The detailed design issues and the measured performances of the transmitter will be discussed.
WSK-3	: SCPAs and the (R)evolution from Polar to Multiphase Transmitters
Jeffrey Walling, Wen Yuan, Zhidong Bai, Ali Azam
Jeffrey Walling, Univ. of Utah
In this talk the switched capacitor PA (SCPA) is introduced. It leverages CMOS inherent strengths of fast switching and lithographic matching to yield a linear, efficient digital PA. The original SCPA was a polar PA, subject to significant system level non-linearity (wide bandwidth, lack of synchronization, etc). I will introduce several techniques that implement SCPAs in discrete phase spaces; several multiple phase digital PA architectures will be discussed that alleviate the need for wideband phase modulators and synchronization. I will highlight several recent examples from the University of Utah PERFIC lab's research with applications of the multiphase techniques to the SCPA.
WSK-4	: Hybrid Broadband PA Architecture Leveraging RF Power DACs
Hua Wang, Song Hu, Jongseok Park
Hua Wang, Georgia Tech University
The recent trend of deploying digital transmitters has stimulated an increasing interest in power amplifiers research and development using RF power DACs. The digitally intensive and reprogrammable nature of RF power DACs opens the door to creating hybrid and broadband power amplifier architectures that can combine the advantages of different power amplifier techniques and potentially achieve superior peak power efficiency, back-off efficiency, and linearity. These hybrid architectures cannot be easily realized using conventional analog power amplifiers. Two power amplifier design will be presented as examples of such hybrid digitally intensive power amplifiers. One design exploits the real-time cooperation of dynamic load modulation and class-G supply modulation, and the other design shows a power amplifier with broadband and highly linear operation.
WSK-5	: Impedance Modulation in Digitally Modulated Polar Power Amplifiers for Wireless Applications
Debopriyo Chowdhury
Debopriyo Chowdhury, Broadcom Corp.
Analog/RF circuits, particularly conventional power amplifiers, do not benefit much from technology scaling. RF transmitters utilize multiple passive components which do not scale with technology and are narrowband. Hence an architecture that can benefit truly from technology scaling as well as offer wideband multi-mode performance will be beneficial. Such architecture is indispensable for reconfigurable or software-defined radios. Digitally modulated transmitters offer such a solution. In this talk, we will cover the pros and cons of a digitally modulated transmitter with special emphasis on a power amplifier. Ways of achieving higher efficiency by using novel impedance modulation will be introduced. In particular, a high power 65nm mixed-signal Inverse Class-D power amplifier design with switchable power combiner will be presented and its integration into a complete transmitter will be discussed.
WSK-6	: Digitally-Modulated CMOS Polar Transmitters for Highly-Efficient mm-Wave Wireless Communication
Khaled Khalaf
Khaled Khalaf, IMEC
The insatiable need of consumers worldwide for higher data rates in wireless communication brings the frequencies of operation towards the millimeter wave spectrum. The polar architecture enables the power amplifier to operate in saturation where efficiency is highest, even when handling higher-order modulations with variable envelope. System analysis for IEEE 802.11ad applications show a required input baseband signal bandwidth of more than 1GHz and the need to synchronize the amplitude and phase paths with picosecond time resolution. A prototype chip uses an RF-DAC with 10GS/s to modulate the amplitude path while overcoming out-of-band spectral images. Implemented in 40nm bulk-CMOS, the 0.18mm2 core circuit transmits a full-rate 5.3dBm QPSK signal with 15.3% average PA efficiency and -23.6dB EVM with -30dB out-of-band distortion.
WSK-7	: Pulse-Width Modulation Based Transmitter Architectures for Wireless Applications
Ranjit Gharpurey, Kunhee Cho, Hyejeong Song
Ranjit Gharpurey, University of Texas
Pulse-width modulation (PWM) encodes the amplitude information of a signal in the duty cycle of a periodic pulse waveform that is switching at a frequency much higher than the bandwidth of the signal itself. Combined with a switch-mode driver amplifier, such as a class-D stage, PWM offers an efficient approach for implementing transmitters. The approach is especially well-suited for digitally-intensive, CMOS-friendly implementations. While PWM combined with a class-D output stage has been very effectively employed in audio systems, its use in wider bandwidth applications such as wireless systems requires an exploration of new circuit techniques and architectures. In this talk, we will describe PWM-based transmitter architectures for applications where the signal bandwidth can extend from several hundreds of KHz to tens of MHz. Transmitters that allow for PWM generation at RF, without the requirement for frequency upconversion, will be described. An overview of the benefits and potential limitations of the PWM approach will be presented. Practical implementations of wireless transmitters employing this approach will also be presented.
WSL:
Microwave Thru Sub-THz Imaging and Sensor Array Technology for Security, Industrial, Commercial and Medical Applications
Ed Balboni, Brian Floyd
Analog Devices, NCSU
Advances in silicon technology now provides the ability to economically build large arrays operating in the microwave to THz frequencies supporting bandwidths in the 10 GHz-100 GHz range. This workshop will include presentations on state of the art sensor arrays. Included will be systems targeted toward security, industrial, commercial and medical applications.
WSL-1	: THz Medical Imaging with RF technology
Zackary Taylor
Zackary Taylor, UCLA
The first published THz medical imaging appeared in the literature at the end of the 1990s and the field experienced accelerated research and development well into the 2000s. The vast majority of reported systems were THz time domain spectroscopy (TDS) and THz time domain imaging (TDI) where ultra-broadband pulses with typically > 1 THz of instantaneous bandwidth were generated and synchronously detected with some combination of photoconductive and electro-optic devices driven by femtosecond lasers. Fast forward to today and while much progress has been made in clinically relevant investigations, clinical translation of THz technology has been limited. There are many applications where TDS and/or TDI still seem ideally suited. However, there is growing evidence that THz imaging systems based on RF technology (part of the standard tool set in the fields of personnel imaging, non-destructive evaluation, and radio astronomy) may be well matched for a multitude of clinical investigations. These issues strongly suggest broad instantaneous bandwidth may not be necessary and thus that the field of THz medical imaging may benefit greatly from research and development of systems based on RF technology. In this talk we introduce two medical applications where video rate acquisition of large areas of the body in pursuit of high contrast anomaly detection would immediately generate interest from the medical community. Further, physiologic and clinical work flow arguments will be made that highlight some of the limitations of TDS/TDI and emphasize the unique capabilities of RF based systems.
WSL-2	: Rotational Spectroscopy with Low Cost CMOS mmw Sensors
Navneet Sharma, Ken O
Navneet Sharma, UT Dallas
Electromagnetic waves in the millimeter- and sub-millimeter-wave frequency ranges are used in fast-scan rotational spectroscopy to detect gas molecules and measure their concentrations. This technique can be used for indoor air quality monitoring, detection of toxic gas leaks, breath analyses for monitoring bodily conditions and many others. This talk reports a 210-to-305GHz transmitter and receiver circuits for a rotational spectrometer. Techniques presented include on-chip antennas, artificial magnetic conductors, diode-based mixers, and high-precision PLLs. Full spectroscopy measurements using these CMOS components will also be reported. 200-250-GHz transmitter and receiver for rotational spectroscopy, which can identify a wide variety of molecules in gas phase and quantify their concentration are demonstrated in 65-nm CMOS. Because the width of spectral lines is ~1MHz or Q is more than 200,000, lines of different molecules do not overlap and provide almost absolute specificity. A rotational spectrometer is an electronic nose. Considering how smell is used in daily life, the number of applications should be almost limitless. The transmitter and receiver were used to detect ethanol from a human breath demonstrating that CMOS will be able to support practical applications at 200-300GHz
WSL-3	: Wideband Transmitters and Receivers for High Resolution Imaging
Gabriel Rebeiz
Gabriel Rebeiz, UCSD
The talk will present the latest work at UCSD for wideband imaging systems at 10-40 GHz. Transmitter and receiver chips, achieving record performance, will be presented. Also, a simple imaging system showing the resolution of this technique will be shown.
WSL-4	: Carrier Distribution and Synchronization for Radar and Imaging Arrays
Adrian Tang
Adrian Tang, JPL
This talk will discuss the challenges of LO requirements and LO distribution for radar and imaging arrays specifically looking at phase noise and distortion related effects and show examples of physically disconnected phase array exciters at 100 and 150 GHz in CMOS technology
WSL-5	: Advances on Spectro and Terahertz Imaging : from Sources to Applications
Patrick Mounaix, Francois Rivet
Patrick Mounaix, IMS Bordeaux University
Recently, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) and terahertz imaging are new methods with unique capabilities. Based on coherent and time-resolved detection of the electric field of ultrashort radiation pulses in the far-infrared, and very versatile ways to generate and detect, Terahertz and millimeter waves can penetrate various dielectric materials, including plastics, ceramics, crystals, and concrete, allowing terahertz transmission and reflection images or analyses to be considered. In this review, the authors describe the techniques in its various implementations for static and time-resolved spectroscopy and imaging, and illustrate the performance of the technique with recent examples with various laboratory and industrial projects. Possible future improvements are related to semiconductor or optical laser sources and detector (Quantum Cascade laser and MMIC sources and sensors, THz camera for example). The terahertz science and especially terahertz imaging will be probably an emerging and an efficient tool for a lot of industrial applications.
WSU:
The Many Flavors of CMOS/Bipolar RF Harmonic Oscillators
Pietro Andreani, Mohyee Mikhemar
Lund Univ., Broadcom
Recent developments in the art of integrated CMOS/bipolar oscillator design have witnessed the introduction of new topologies – class-C, class-F, class-F2, clip and restore, and other still unnamed – that complement well-known and much appreciated architectures such as the beloved class-B (in its many variations) and Colpitts. This workshop offers an overview of all these oscillators, bringing some clarity on the pros and cons of each.
WSU-1	: Common-Mode Resonance in LC Oscillators
David Murphy, Broadcom
The performance of a differential LC oscillator can be enhanced by resonating the common-mode of the circuit at twice the oscillation frequency. When this technique is correctly employed, Q-degradation due to the triode operation of the differential pair is eliminated and flicker noise is nulled. Although the original topology using this technique first appeared in 2001, its performance remains state of the art. In this workshop, we will use Bank's general result to show that common-mode resonate topologies are, in fact, near-optimal. That is, for a given resonator tank Q, the FOM of such a design is within 1dB of theoretical limit for any oscillator. Common design pitfalls, which may prevent this near optimal behavior, will be explained and the importance of differential pair sizing will be explored. Insights from class-D and class-C topologies will be used to gain additional intuition into the optimization of the differential pair. It will also be shown how recently published topologies achieve common-mode resonance using a single differential LC tank (i.e. removing the requirement for an additional tail inductor). Although such topologies have one less degree of design freedom, their performance is theoretical identically to the standard approach of using a tail resonate tank.
WSU-2	: Class-F and Switching Current-Source CMOS Oscillators
Masoud Babaie
Masoud Babaie, TU Delft, The Netherlands
Spectral purity of RF LC-tank oscillators is typically addressed by enhancing its oscilla-tion voltage, improving the quality factor of the tank, lowering its noise factor, and in-creasing its power consumption. However, the rate of improvement in phase noise versus power consumption reduces as the core devices enter the triode region. On the other hand, technology scaling limits the oscillation voltage swing due to the reliability issues. It also slightly degrades the tank Q-factor and transistor excess noise factor and thus penalizing oscillator phase noise. Conse-quently, the oscillators of excellent spectral purity and power efficiency are becoming more and more challenging. This has motivated an intensive research leading to recently introduced new oscillator topologies. In the first part of this presentation, we specifically address the ultra-low phase noise design space while maintaining high power efficiency. The main idea is to enforce a pseudo-square or clipped voltage waveform around the LC-tank by increasing the second or/and third harmonics of the fundamental oscillation volt-age through additional impedance peaks, thus giving rise to a class-F operation. As a result, the oscillator impulse sensitivity function and circuit-to-phase noise conver-sion reduce especially when the active gm-devices periodically enter the triode region during which the LC-tank is heavily loaded. In the second part of this talk, we switch gears to the ultra-low voltage and power design space for Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. The benefits and constraints of different flavors of LC oscillators are investigated from this perspective. It will be shown that a switching current-source oscillator combines advantages of low supply voltage of the conventional NMOS cross-coupled oscillator with high current efficiency of the comple-mentary push-pull oscillator to reduce the oscillator supply voltage and dissipated power further than practically possible in the traditional oscillators.
WSU-3	: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Bipolar Voltage-Controlled Oscillators
Andrea Bevilacqua
Andrea Bevilacqua, University of Padova, Italy
The talk will deal with the design of low-phase noise voltage-controlled harmonic oscillators (VCOs) implemented in bipolar technologies. The design challenges related to achieving minimum phase noise for a given set of technology parameters (supply voltage, metal stack, varactor devices, etc.) will be discussed with particular emphasis to attaining low phase noise while using varactor diodes, to the use of magnetic transformers in the resonator, and to the selection of the most appropriate oscillator topology. Suitable design techniques to tackle such issues will be illustrated. As a design example of the use of the proposed techniques, two class-C VCOs tailored for operation in the K-band will be presented.
WSU-4	: Fundamental Limitations in RF and mm-wave Harmonic Oscillators
Danilo Manstretta
Danilo Manstretta, University of Pavia, Italy
Modern mobile communication systems need clocks with very low phase noise and low power consumption. In RF and mm-wave oscillators this can be achieved acting on the oscillator topology and/or on the resonator quality factor. Oscillator topology affects the power vs phase noise trade-off in two equally important ways. First, acting on the conversion of circuit noise into phase noise through changing the impulse sensitivity function (ISF); second, changing the maximum achievable power conversion efficiency, i.e. the conversion of DC power into resonator RF power, which directly affects the phase noise. The goal of this talk is to investigate the ultimate performance limit for some of the most used oscillators topologies, including most types of class-B (standard, AC-coupled and with tail filter), class-C and class-F LC oscillators as well as mm-wave distributed oscillators (traveling-wave and standing-wave). An intuitive yet sufficiently accurate formulation of phase noise is presented. To compare different topologies an excess noise factor that represents the difference between the maximum achievable Figure of Merit and the actual one is also introduced. In addition, the theory is experimentally verified in a rigorous and objective way comparing different topologies in the exact same operating conditions, i.e. technology, Q of the tank, dividers, etc. Measurements on several chip prototypes allow to verify, in an unbiased way a very good agreement between the model and both simulations and measurements.
WSU-5	: The Insider Guide to Designing mm-Wave Silicon VCOs
Waleed Khalil
Waleed Khalil, The Ohio State University
Low frequency LC-VCOs have been well studied in the literature and several strategies have been developed to optimize their performance. However, several interesting challenges in the mm-wave space, especially close to the fT/fmax, motivate the need for a closer examination of the tuning range and phase noise in mm-wave VCOs. This seminar will elucidate some of the key challenges in designing mm-wave VCOs while also offering some insight on how to design them "robustly" in silicon-based technologies. First a detailed analysis of the ultimate performance bounds in simultaneously achieving low phase noise and wide tuning range will be presented. Next, the impact of technology scaling on the achievable performance bounds will be illustrated. The tuning range and close-in/far-out phase noise performance of MOS and HBT VCOs across the 10-70 GHz space will then be analyzed and compared. Here, special attention will be paid to the impact of different circuit parameters on the phase noise performance in both VCOs. Finally, a new BiCMOS topology is elicited and demonstrated to meet stringent phase noise and turning range specifications.
SSA:
Introduction to Solid-State Power Amplifier Design and Considerations for Space-Borne Applications
Natanael Ayllon, Iain Davies, Vaclav Valenta
The aim of this short course is to provide a general overview of solid-state power amplifiers (SSPA), their architecture, and use in the space applications. The course will delineate the main differences in designing SSPAs for ground and for space segment applications in terms of achievable RF performances, overall cost and lead times. The course will also describe the environment in which the equipment operates and give an overview of the necessary provisions made during the design of this equipment to ensure the high level of reliability needed in space. The impact of market trends will be described, driving the need for research and development at an architectural and technological level in increased efficiency and output power whilst at the same time reducing volume, mass and cost, as the next generation of megaconstellation demand.
SSC:
From Bits to Waves: Building a Modern Digital Radio in 1 Day
David Ricketts
North Carolina State Univ.
In this fun and interactive short course, participants will learn the basic theory of modern digital radios as well as the RF circuits and systems used to build them. After an introductory session on digital radios, participants will select an RF building block to design and build. There will be short mini-classes (run in parallel) on each component: double balanced mixer, microstrip filters, low noise amplifiers, power amplifiers, baluns, patch antenna, etc. The radios will operate in the ISM 920 MHz band. After the mini-classes, each participant will design their RF component using NI AWR software, including full layout and EM simulation. In the afternoon, the designs will be transferred to PCB via a simple "PCB in a bag" method and each circuit built and tested using a simple VNA. The workshop will conclude with a full radio test of at transmitter and receiver. Participants need only a basic background in RF circuits, such as S-parameters and basic transmission line theory. Example designs will be available to ensure that everyone, form the most advanced RF designer, to the student can build a successful RF component. You only need to bring your laptop - all materials and equipment will be provided. Due to the nature of this practical short course, your attendance during the entire day is required. Course notes can be found at www.rickettslab.org/bits2waves
WSA:
100-1000 GHz: Crossroads for New Design Paradigms Connecting Devices, Circuits, Systems and Applications
Kaushik Sengupta, Goutam Chattopadhyay
Princeton Univ., NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab
The decade of frequency spectrum spanning 100 GHz to 1000 GHz has promised a plethora of novel applications ranging from communication to sensing, spectroscopy and high-resolution imaging. The spectrum has been successful in attracting rapt attention (and controversies in perhaps equal measure) from scientists and engineers who have been dedicated to finding the killer application with the right technology for many years. However, it is only in the last decade, that we have seen unprecedented improvement in the technology space that has allowed early demonstrations of fully integrated complex systems at these frequencies including chip-scale and wafer-scale phased arrays, multi-GB/s communication systems, imaging and spectroscopy, to name a few. Not surprisingly, at the intersection between microwave and infra-red frequencies, the underlying technology space also spans from solid-state devices (III-V, silicon, hybrid etc) to photonics-based approaches. Now that we are closer than ever before to a potentially diverse set of technology that can successfully address the spectrum, it is time to look into the future to gauge the prospects that lie ahead and ask fundamental questions: What are the unique opportunities in this frequency range and what is the right technology? Is this evolving spectral space comparable to what mm-Wave (below 100 GHz) was a decade ago? Are there unique design methodologies and paradigms cutting across the various layers of abstraction that can break the classical trade-offs in efficiency and scalability. In this workshop, we bring experts working across the technology space to understand the challenges and discuss these fundamental opportunities that can open up the spectrum for transformative technology in the coming decade.
WSA-1	: Advanced InP HEMT Technology for Terahertz Amplifier Circuits
Richard Lai
Richard Lai, Northrop Grumman
Advanced InP HEMT Technology for Terahertz Amplifier Circuits Advances in scaled InP High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) processes have achieved record low noise amplifier performance from millimeter-wave to THz frequencies and have resulted in the first ever Terahertz Monolithic Integrated Circuit (TMIC) demonstrating amplification at 1.0 THz (1000 GHz) for the first time. This presentation will describe the key manufacturing advances and future technology development roadmap, along with challenges as we transition advanced InP HEMT nodes from R&D into fielded hardware.
WSA-2	: Characterization and Scaling of Silicon Devices and Benchmark Circuits for mm-wave and THz Applications
Sorin Voinigescu
Sorin Voinigescu, Univ. of Toronto
This presentation will compare the high frequency performance scaling of SiGe HBTs and MOSFETs to 2-3nm gate length and beyond 2THz transistor fMAX based on technology CAD (TCAD) and atomistic simulations. Characterization techniques and S-parameter measurements of state-of-the-art silicon MOSFETs, SiGe HBTs, and of a variety of HBT-HBT and MOS-HBT cascodes from DC to 325 GHz will be discussed along with simulations of the scaling of analog and mixed-signal mm-wave benchmark circuit performance from the current to future technology nodes.
WSA-3	: Wafer-Scale CMOS for THz Sources and Phased-Array Transmitters
Gabriel Rebeiz, University of California, San Diego
The talk will present the latest development in THz phased-array transmitters, with emphasis on operation frequencies greater than 200 GHz. This includes CMOS phased-arrays operating at 370-410 GHz with high efficiency on-chip antennas and record EIRP, high efficiency multipliers and multiplier-arrays at 200-240 GHz, and quadruplers at 400-500 GHz with two-dimensional power combining.
WSA-4	: Circuit-electromagnetics-systems Co-design for High-performance Terahertz Chip-scale Systems
Kaushik Sengupta
Kaushik Sengupta, Princeton Univ.
Silicon-based integrated circuit technology provides a great platform for enabling compact, efficient, low-power, chip-scale THz systems for new applications in sensing, imaging and communication beyond the niche scientific applications that the spectrum is currently known for. While this is partially facilitated by scaling that has pushed device cut-off frequencies (ft, fmax) up into the higher mm-Wave and THz frequency range, the true paradigm shift in silicon integration is that it provides a unique opportunity to enable a new field of active THz electromagnetics realizable through a circuits-EM-systems codesign approach. At these frequencies, the chip dimension is several times larger than the THz wavelengths which allows novel scattering and radiating properties in a substrate that simultaneously supports a billion high-frequency transistors that can generate, process and sense these signals. The ability to actively synthesize, manipulate and sense THz EM fields at subwavelength scales with circuits opens up a new design space for THz electronics. THz architectures emerging from this space are often multi-functional, reconfigurable and break many of the classical trade-offs of a partitioned design approach. This talk will provide examples to illustrate this design methodology on THz signal generation with beam-forming and spectrum control and THz spectrum sensing.
WSA-5	: Interconnecting Technologies for Terahertz Components and Instruments
Goutam Chattopadhyay
Goutam Chattopadhyay, Jet Propulsion Lab, Caltech
Terahertz circuits, interconnects, and packaging have received unprecedented attention in recent years for their use in emerging areas such as security screening and standoff weapons detection, high speed digital communications, automatic landing systems through fog and dust, and even for aircraft re-fueling in air. Traditional terahertz application areas such as high-resolution spectrometers and imagers for astrophysics, planetary, and Earth science instruments are increasingly looking for multi-pixel array architecture which requires high level of integration and packaging. Active components such as InP high electron mobility transistors (HEMT) and metamorhpic HEMT (mHEMT), heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT), GaAs Schottky diodes, and CMOS circuits are being used at these frequencies. However, one major challenge has been to integrate them in a multipixel detector system with low-loss interconnects and build a highly integrated package. Common interconnect circuits such as microstrips and CPW lines are too lossy at these frequencies. Moreover, conventional approach of building single-pixel receivers and stacking them to assemble multi-pixel array receivers is not suited at terahertz frequencies. What one needs are novel ultra-compact receiver architectures which are easy to fabricate, preferably by lithographic techniques, to build multi-pixel array receivers where majority of the front-end components along with the antenna element can be integrated in a small form factor. In this workshop presentation we'll talk about different multi-pixel receiver architectures at terahertz frequencies, specifically focusing on silicon micro-machined front-end components. We'll discuss novel stacking of micro-machined silicon wafers which allows for the 3-dimensional integration of various terahertz receiver components in extremely small packages which easily leads to the development of 2-dimensioanl multi-pixel receiver front-ends in the terahertz frequency range. Integrating antennas with terahertz front-end elements has been challenging as most of the planar antennas are too lossy at these frequencies. In this presentation we'll also explore novel horn and lens antenna architectures which are suitable for integration with silicon micromachined receiver systems. It will be shown that using advanced semiconductor nanofabrication techniques it is possible to design, fabricate, and demonstrate a super-compact, low-mass, and highly integrated multi-pixel terahertz array receiver. The research described herein was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA, under contract with National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
WSA-6	: Photonics-enabled Terahertz Technologies and Their Applications
Tadao Nagatsuma
Tadao Nagatsuma, Osaka Univ.
An active research and development of terahertz (THz) technologies were initiated with use of photonics technologies in 1990's. In the last 10 years, with the advance of semiconductor devices and integrated circuits, electronics-based THz technologies have recently gained a great attention to make THz systems and subsystems more compact and cost-effective. In this talk, we review photonics-based approaches in practical applications such as communications and measurements, clarify merit, role and issue of photonics in THz technologies, and discuss its future directions to compete and/or coexist with electronics.
WSA-7	: Polymer Waveguides as an Alternative to Optical and Copper High-speed Communication
Patrick Reynaert
Patrick Reynaert, Katholieke Univ. Leuven
Scaling of silicon technology following Moores' law has allowed feasibility of CMOS circuits operating above 100GHz. These high frequencies support order of magnitude higher bandwidths enabling high-data rate applications. Furthermore, at these high frequencies, thin (mm-range) polymer fibers such as those made from PE,PP, PS, PTFE, are excellent transmission media and exhibit fairly low loss, below 5dB/m. As such, the combination of CMOS mm-wave transceivers, on-chip or on-board antennas and thin plastic fibers leads to an innovative communication concept that is, in certain applications, perform better than optical communication or copper wireline communication. Especially for cases where high EMI resilience, high mechanical tolerance and low costs are important, such as automotive communication, this 'RF over Plastics' concept can be a game-changing technology. This presentation will discuss some of the key benefits and drawbacks of polymer microwave fiber technology and will present the results of the ongoing research at KU Leuven on this topic since 2012.
WSA-8	: Beyond Active Terahertz Imaging in Silicon Technology
Richard Hadi
Richard Hadi, Univ. of California, Los Angeles
Integrated circuits in silicon technologies have been increasingly used in the THz spectrum for synthesis and detection of signals. In spite of the physical limitations related to device speed and cutoff frequencies, circuit design techniques have been implemented to enable integrated terahertz systems well beyond these frequencies. THz imaging in silicon is example of this approach, and can potentially enable new applications in this range. The large available bandwidth from 0.3-3THz combined with on-chip multi-element integration can enable novel imaging perspectives. However, enabling this system in a cost-effective and scalable fashion presents significant challenges not only in the realm of circuit design, but also in the co-design of the entire system. Many challenges are still to be addressed, starting with availability of efficient sources with high radiated power, improved tuning range and coherence. On the receiver front, detectors are also in need of improving their sensitivity. These considerations have led to active imaging approaches and systems have been demonstrated with these methodologies. This workshop presentation will focus on recent work that addresses these challenges in silicon technology. This will cover circuit realizations in CMOS technology for terahertz generation and detection, as well as novel imaging approaches.
WSB:
5G Communications Innovations: Connectivity for the Next Decade
Edward Niehenke, Nuno Borges Carvalho, Alberto Valdes-Garcia, Laurent Dussopt, Roberto Gomez-Garcia
Niehenke Consulting, Univ. of Aveiro, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, CEA Tech, Univ. of Alcala
5G communication is a unifying connectivity fabric for the next decade empowering new user experiences, connecting new industries and devices, enabling new services and delivering new levels of efficiency. This workshop will focus on technologies leading the 5G connectivity. An overview of the 5G communication system will be presented showing usage scenarios, enhanced broadband mobile, mission critical services, massive internet of things, standards and spectrum. Propagation, system design and performance of 5G millimeter wave mobile communications will be presented. 5G C-Ran technologies approaches will be presented with the path to all digital radios. A fusion of millimeter-wave access and mobile edge computing (MiEdge) is introduced to alleviate the problem of backhaul links facilitating millimeter-wave technologies in 5G systems. Architectures and circuits for 5G Base Station Transmitters will be shown with new analysis techniques to meet 5G requirements. Designs of critical mm-wave circuits for 5G base stations are presented including an integrated 30 GHz SiGe BiCMOS transmitter. Power Amplifier (PA) Innovations for 5G System will be presented with innovative state-of-the-art designs that integrate the power amplifier with digital pre-distortion. CMOS mm-wave PAs for 5G communication will be shown including on-chip power combining and wideband AM-PM cancellation of 64 QAM and 256 QAM modulations. Several PA examples in 40 nm and 28 nm CMOS, operating at 28 GHz, 60 GHz and 85 GHz will be used throughout the presentation. Millimeter-Wave Phased-Arrays for 5G Systems will be presented showing latest development in 5G communication systems at UCSD including 28 GHz and at 60 GHz phased-arrays and related communication links using silicon RFICs and innovative packaging. Architectures and circuits for millimeter-wave Massive MIMO will be presented with recent developments on a few candidate CMOS-based circuit and system technologies for 5G millimeter-wave applications. A new filter development employing hybrid-lumped-element-acoustic wave filter will be presented that allows large bandwidth, multi-band operation, and transfer-function adaptiveness.
WSB-1	: Communications Innovations: Connectivity for the Next Decade and Beyond to 2030
Upkar Dhaliwal
Upkar Dhaliwal, Future Wireless Technologies, San Diego, CA USA
This presentation will give an overview of 5G communication Systems including New Ecosystems and Markets, Usage Scenarios, Mission-Critical Services, Massive Internet of Things, Standards and Spectrum. Major trends will be summarized with a perspective on developments and technologies at this extraordinary time in communications. These important areas include: Open agile innovation, Cloud based applications with wireless connectivity to devices, Local/distributed integrated smart capabilities (processing and memory), and Increasing Software-defined-centric world The development of introduction of past 2G, 3G and 4G telecom systems were done in a well-defined and established ecosystems but NOT in 5G, it will be mix of established players and new ecosystems. Examples of affected ecosystems will be given beyond the world the Internet Giants of Google, Facebook, Amazon, plus others unexpected etc.
WSB-2	: Millimeter Wave Mobile Communications: Propagation, System Design and Performance
Ashwin Sampath
Ashwin Sampath, Qualcomm, Inc.
Recent years have seen considerable increase in activities related to 5G definition and associated research. While a number of novel use cases and services are being contemplated, there is consensus that data demand will continue to grow, putting further pressure on already congested spectrum. Millimeter-wave bands have been cited as having the potential to alleviate some of this pressure. This talk will cover the opportunities and challenges with mobile communications in the millimeter wave band for the deployments and use cases of interest. Specifically, the talk will first cover material and channel propagation measurements highlighting the contrast with sub-6GHz propagation. With those observations, a number of system design principles and associated device/component level requirements will be outlined. Finally, taking some of the design principles and component level considerations into account, coverage and capacity modeling results will be presented. Some test results from our first generation prototype system at 28GHz will also be presented
WSB-3	: MiEdge: Fusion of mmWave Access and Mobile Edge Computing for 5G
Keii Sakaguchi
Keii Sakaguchi, HHI Fraunhofer Institute, Berlin, Germany.
Millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) technology has matured and it's almost ready for 5G. However, the limited capacity of back-haul links are becoming bottleneck of mm-Wave integrated networks. In this talk, a fusion of mm-Wave access and mobile edge computing (MiEdge) is introduced to alleviate the problem of back-haul links and to facilitate spreading of mm-Wave technologies in 5G systems.
WSB-4	: Architectures and Circuits for 5G Base Station Transmitters
Christian Fager
Christian Fager, Chalmers University, Sweden
The exploration of mm-wave frequencies and active antenna architectures will pose completely new challenges in the design of base stations for 5G mobile networks. In the first part of this presentation, we will discuss how various RF hardware impairments will affect the performance in emerging base station architectures. We will introduce new analysis techniques that help us explain and understand how key RF parameters like nonlinear distortion, energy efficiency, and phase-noise will have to be revisited in derivation of future circuit design requirements. The theoretical predictions will be complemented with experimental results obtained using Chalmers 30 GHz massive MIMO test-bed. The second part of the presentation will be devoted to the design of critical mm-wave circuits for 5G base stations. Starting from 5G base station requirements, we will present an integrated 30 GHz SiGe BiCMOS transmitter lineup comprising the co-design of analog pre-distortion linearization, I/Q modulator, and efficient Doherty PA circuits. The excellent results obtained demonstrate the capabilities offered by advanced semiconductor technologies, and indicates a possible direction towards realization of efficient and linear transmitters for next generation wireless systems.
WSB-5	: Power Amplifier Innovations for 5G System
Sergio Pires
Sergio Pires, Ampleon, Nijmegen Area, Netherlands
Traditionally, in a wireless communication system, the power amplifier (PA) has been designed as a standalone block. More recently, the need to maximize the performance and reduce the cost lead the PA and digital pre-distortion (DPD) algorithms to a joint development. For the future, besides the referred performance maximization and cost reduction, the 5G systems will add an extra parameter, the integration. Considering that the massive MIMO antenna structures (for frequencies below 6GHz) might contain 64 or more antenna elements (each one with an associated PA), it is evident that to achieve the requested objectives, the PA design cannot be dissociated from the remaining front-end blocks. This factor is even more visible at mm-Wave frequencies, at which the physical dimensions are so stringent that integration is even more important and the technology limitations forces more innovative designs.
WSB-6	: CMOS mm-wave PAs for 5G Communication
Patrick Reynaert, ESAT MICAS, Leuven, Belgium
This presentation will discuss the challenges of implementing a wide-band and high-efficiency PA in CMOS technology at mm-wave frequencies. Key-enabling circuit techniques, such as on-chip power combining and wide-band AM-PM cancellation, will be discussed in greater detail. These techniques are crucial to support higher order constellations such as 64QAM and 256QAM as needed for 5G. Several PA examples in 40nm and 28nm CMOS, operating at 28GHz, 60GHz and 85GHz will be used throughout the presentation to further explain the used techniques.
WSB-7	: Millimeter-Wave Phased-Arrays for 5G Systems
Gabriel M Rebeiz
Gabriel M Rebeiz, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA
The talk will present the latest development in 5G communication systems at UCSD. The phased-arrays and related communication links will be discussed, both at 28 GHz and at 60 GHz. Prof. Rebeiz group has achieved Gbps over hundreds of meters, even kms, using phased-array technologies. All work is based on silicon RFICs and innovative packaging
WSB-8	: Antennas for Integration in Miniaturized Wireless Communication
Mario Pauli, Thomas Zwick
Mario Pauli, Thomas Zwick, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
As the demand for higher data rates in mobile communications still increases, new wireless systems might even use millimeter wave frequencies for the connection between the base station and the mobile. In addition, millimeter wave links are very attractive for front- and back-hauling of the new femto-cell base stations placed in areas of very high user density like transportation hubs and downtown areas. Since at millimeter wave frequencies they use of cables between antenna and transceiver is not anymore reasonable in this presentation antenna concepts for the above sketched applications will be presented together with suitable integration concepts.
WSB-9	: Architectures and Circuits for mmWave Full-Duplex and Massive MIMO
Harish Krishnaswamy
Harish Krishnaswamy, Columbia Univ.
The first decade of millimeter-waves in silicon (2000-2010) saw the maturation of complex SiGe and CMOS integrated circuits and systems for short-range high-data-rate wireless communications. More recently, the millimeter-wave range has drawn significant interest for next-generation ("5G") cellular communication networks. Such applications place significantly different requirements on the systems, including link range, mobility and coexistence, resulting in far more stringent circuit requirements, such as higher transmitter output power, stricter transmitter linearity, and agile beam-steering in large-scale phased-arrays. In addition, advanced communication paradigms, such as full-duplex and massive MIMO, are being considered to further enhance the spectral efficiency and data capacity. This workshop presentation will reviews recent developments on a few candidate CMOS-based circuit and system technologies for 5G millimeter-wave applications.
WSB-10	: Filter Developments for Next-Generation Wireless Communications Systems
Roberto Gómez-García:, Dimitra Psychogiou, Dimitrios Peroulis
Dimitra Psychogiou, Roberto Gómez-García:, University of Colorado Boulder, CO, USA, University of Alcalá, Spain
Next-generation wireless communications systems call for RF transceivers with multi-functional operability as well as immunity to undesired interference and noise that are typically present in dense communication environments. As a result, advanced filtering devices capable of meeting the very stringent requirements demanded by these systems need to be conceived. In particular, acoustic-wave (AW) filters have been the key filtering technology of mobile transceivers due to their high quality factor (>10,000) and miniaturized volume (
WSB-11	: RF Front-End Innovations for 5G Systems
Makoto Kawashima, Murata Mfg. Co., Kyoto Japan
Coping with the rapid increase of mobile data traffic, the frequency spectrum for mobile communications has been expanding, and in the 5G system a wide range from sub-6GHz to mm-wave bands will be employed in addition to conventional LTE bands. For mm-wave communications, beam-forming technique and/or Massive MIMO are indispensable technologies, so new requirements for RF front-ends have been emerging for both mobile terminals and base stations. This presentation describes the challenges for higher and wider frequency range application of RF front-end devices and modules. For a 28GHz phased array unit, Antenna integrated Module (AiM) with small size and high performance modules including not only RF-ICs, amplifiers and passive components but also antenna pattern using a low temperature co-fired ceramics (LTCC) is one of the key technologies. Heterogeneous integration and 3D structure lead to the size reduction and low loss. Furthermore, a quartz waveguide Band Pass Filter (BPF) and a miniaturized circulator for 28GHz improve the massive MIMO antenna system. Expansion to 60GHz antenna array integrated modules and sub-6GHz reconfigurable RF front-end architectures are discussed. Accurate and high speed measurement technologies for mm-wave antenna module performances are also introduced.
WSC:
5G mm-Wave IC Front-End Co-Design with Antenna, Packaging, and Testing for Future SOC Solutions
Yanjie Jay Wang, Didier Belot, Hua Wang
Intel Corporation - Intel Labs, CEA-LETI, Georgia Institute of Technology
The 5th generation wireless systems (5G) is proposed as the next major revolution of mobile wireless technologies. Mm-Wave carriers and MIMO systems are expected to be extensively employed in 5G systems to achieve significantly enhanced data rate, spectral/spatial diversity/efficiency, and minimized system latency. High-performance mm-wave front-end integrated circuit design has always been a major technical challenge, and the inflexible 50 ohm interface with antenna and packaging adds to such existing circuit challenges. In this full-day workshop, the speakers will demonstrate/discuss their recent innovations in the mm-Wave antenna and low-cost packaging designs as well as their co-designs with mm-Wave front-end circuits. Moreover, the sophisticate mm-wave testing for future System-on-Chip solutions is also discussed, as the cost of such industrial applications will be shared between the die, the package and the testing.
WSC-1	: Millimeter-Wave Phased-Arrays for 5G Systems
Gabriel Rebeiz, Univ. of California, San Diego
The talk will present the latest development in 5G communication systems at UCSD. The phased-arrays and related communication links will be discussed, both at 28 GHz and at 60 GHz. Prof. Rebeiz group has achieved Gbps over hundreds of meters, even kms, using phased-array technologies. All work is based on silicon RFICs and innovative packaging.
WSC-2	: Mm-Wave SiGe Power Amplifiers for 5G
Domine Leenaerts
Domine Leenaerts, NXP
Small cell backhaul communication in 5G mm-wave systems will occur in the 27 – 30 GHz band. Depending on the choice of antenna plane, link budget and beam steering concept, the required transmitted output power of the Front End Modules (FEM) is in the range of 15dBm to 30dBm. Besides the challenge to deliver this level of power at mm-wave frequencies in silicon technology, efficiency becomes a crucial design parameter as case cooling of the antenna panel with more than 100 FEM units is preferred. In this presentation we will discuss techniques to realize silicon-based RF PAs for these power levels at these mm-wave frequencies and elaborate on thermal design and packaging. In this workshop we will discuss a 5G mm-wave transmit line up with 18dBm output power and an integrated 30dBm PA for backhaul communication, both realized in an in-house SiGe:C BiCMOS technology.
WSC-3	: Ultra-Broadband mm-Wave ICs for Next (5th) Generation Wireless
Jacques Chris Rudell
Jacques Chris Rudell, Univ. of Washington
The last 15 years has witnessed revolutionary changes in mobile computing and wireless communication. This was fueled in large part through Moore's Law, coupled with research and development of new highly-integrated, silicon CMOS devices which transformed large bulky transceiver components into a single chip for wireless applications. These single-chip radios freed up valuable space for more memory and powerful processors, making the modern smartphone, as we know it today, so common and ubiquitous. Although the architectures, circuits, and system-level design methodologies to realize these low-cost, highly-integrated RF ICs have largely been defined, questions remain on how to enable chips for emerging applications in an era of large scale data acquisition, and communication, for a variety of devices ranging in use from wireless sensing, to high-speed mobile communication and radar. A common theme among these future devices is the need for highly-integrated ultra-broadband (10GHz+) transceiver solutions. However, achieving high bandwidth in the mm-Wave band becomes challenging without burning excessive power and occupying an absolute minimum silicon area, particularly in phased-array applications where numerous elements are replicated on the same die. This presentation explores recent work which attempt to achieve extremely high bandwidth transceivers while utilizing the smallest silicon area possible.
WSC-4	: Multi-Feed Antenna and On-Antenna Power Combining for High-Power High-Efficiency Mm-Wave Transmitter
Hua Wang
Hua Wang, Georgia Institute of Technology
A major challenge for low-cost silicon-based mm-wave wireless systems, e.g., the 5G MIMO communication links, is to provide large transmitter (Tx) output power (Pout) with high energy efficiency and linearity from a limited supply voltage, so that the high path loss and limited link budget at mm-wave can be compensated. Power combining is often required for these mm-wave Tx. The existing power combining techniques are mainly in two categories. Passive networks can combine the Pout from multiple power amplifiers (PAs) and feed the single antenna port. However, lossy power combiners and large impedance transformation ratios degrade the total Pout delivered to the antenna and lower the Tx efficiency. Alternatively, spatial power combining using antenna array increases the total EIRP but at the expense of a large array panel size. Moreover, a large antenna array often presents an exceedingly narrow (or even pencil-sharp) beam-width; this complicates the Tx/Rx alignment and is challenging for dynamic and mobile mm-wave applications, such as 5G links. In addition, adding silicon lens enhances EIRP but increases cost and packaging complexity. In this talk, we present a concept of multi-feed antenna (MFA) and its co-design with mm-wave transmitters; MFA can be viewed as multiple electrically small antennas that are driven concurrently by multiple feeds but radiate collectively and efficiently as a single antenna. Such an MFA structure naturally allows on-antenna low-loss power combining from multiple PAs, radiation impedance down-scaling, and boosting total output power in one single antenna footprint. We will present multiple MFA designs at different frequencies to demonstrate the concept. We will also present a 60GHz linear radiator element in a 45nm CMOS SOI, as an on-chip MFA driven by 16 linear PAs. The radiator IC generates 27.9dBm Psat and 33.1dBm peak EIRP with 23.4% PAE at 59GHz, showing the best reported mm-Wave PA/transmitter performance in the 60GHz band. Without any signal pre-distortion, the radiator IC achieves -21.9dB EVM with 20.2dBm Pavg for 4Gb/s 16QAM signal, and -25.4dB EVM with 19.3dBm Pavg for 4.8Gb/s 64QAM signal.
WSC-5	: Silicon-based ICs and Organic Packaging/Antenna Solutions for 5G mmWave Communications
Alberto Valdes-Garcia
Alberto Valdes-Garcia, IBM
Phased array mmWave transceiver architectures for directional Gb/s wireless links, suitable for full integration in silicon are reviewed. Design considerations of building blocks, key to beamforming performance such as RF phase shifters and variable gain amplifiers are presented and illustrated with examples. Antenna diversity and beam forming techniques suitable for low-cost packaging implementation are also discussed. Fully integrated transceiver implementation examples including antennas-in-package are presented to illustrate system-implementation trade-offs, and IC-package co-design challenges.
WSC-6	: MmW Antenna Integrated Front-End IC-Module Co-Design and Testing for 5G Applications
Debabani Choudhury
Debabani Choudhury, Intel Corporation - Intel Labs
Traditionally antennas, packages, RFICs are designed separately and put together with interconnects and matching networks to create wireless communication systems. Recent advancements of CMOS-based ICs are enabling mm-wave systems for next generation communication. At mm-waves, it is desired that the antennas, mmW-ICs, packages, system-modules are co-designed to avoid performance degradation. This talk will present mm-wave co-design and testing examples to discuss the advantages and challenges associated with CMOS-based mmW systems for 5G applications.
WSC-7	: Non-invasive mmW Built-in Test Techniques
Jose Luis Gonzalez
Jose Luis Gonzalez, Leti, technology research institute
The increase of integrated radio transceivers carrier frequencies is posing an important challenge for testing. 5G system are following in this directions with envisaged carrier frequencies beyond 24 GHz. Built-in testing and built-in self-testing (BIST) for RFIC is an attractive solution for RFICs but with increasing carrier frequencies the access to the high frequency outputs of the circuits, especially at mmW frequencies becomes very challenging if a minimum impact on the circuit performance has to be preserved. Non-invasive, contact-less techniques using indirect measurements, such as the local temperature increase have been recently proposed to tackle this issue. Other recent BIST techniques are based on replica circuits. We will introduce in this talks these innovative BIST technique for mmW integrated front-ends.
WSC-8	: MmW Industrial Test Trends
Dorine Gurney
Dorine Gurney, Tektronix
A number of new design and test challenges arise as 5G evolves to provide greater data capacity. Modulation bandwidths much wider than LTE are expected and designs are done at frequencies above 28 GHz where spectrum is available. These millimeter wave devices may not have a physical test port, requiring test equipment to connect wirelessly and calibration methods that correct for the air interface. This presentation introduces challenges associated with Physical Layer (PHY) testing of SoC at Millimeter Wave frequencies; then it discusses generation and analysis tools offered by Test and Measurement vendors to improve signal quality measurements at these frequencies. Results achieved on a 60GHz low-power transceiver module are presented.
WSC-9	: Rethinking mm-Wave Multi-Antenna Transceiver Design to Accommodate both Beamforming and Diversity
Payam Heydari
Payam Heydari, University of California at Irvine
To achieve the dramatic improvements in capacity and spectral efficiency needed to accommodate access to high volume of wireless data and the even increasing number of users who want to access to it anytime and anywhere, three symbiotic technological directions are independently emerged: (1) A push towards greater frequency reuse through the creation of smaller and smaller cells, referred to as pico- and femto cells with ranges on the order of 10-200 meters. (2) A consideration of millimeter wave frequencies around and above 70 GHz where the spectrum is less crowded and greater bandwidth is available. (3) The idea of base stations equipped with a large number of antennas that can simultaneously accommodate many co-channel users. This idea is referred as MIMO. However, the next generation multi-antenna transceivers must also provide sufficient output power with great radiation selectivity and directivity. This notion is calling for new generations of MIMO transceivers that also provide beamforming forming and spatial power combining. This talk will be going through latest advances in this exciting domain.
WSD:
Advanced Concepts and Architectures for Future RF and mmW Transceivers in Nanoscale CMOS
Francois Rivet, Gernot Hueber
Univ. of Bordeaux, NXP Semiconductors
With the advent of nano-scale CMOS technology, exciting new developments have recently taken place in the field of RF and mm-wave transmitters, receivers and frequency synthesizers. The low-voltage, fast speed, fine feature-size and low cost of the new technology have forever changed the way we design circuits, architectures and systems. Not only the RF/mm-wave circuits have taken different shapes from what has been taught in textbooks but also their integration with digital processors have enabled new possibilities for digital assistance The motivation of this workshop is to capture what is the state at the edge of technology, what is the demand of the industry in the context of high volume products, as well, what are circuit and architectural concepts that are demanded or enforced by the technology. Hence, the idea is to capture and summarize the trends and directions RF design is heading to, which makes it highly valuable from early researchers to long time experienced experts as well as technology scouts.
WSD-1	: Design by Mathematics : a Novel Approach for the Design of RFICs in Nanoscale CMOS
Francois Rivet
Francois Rivet, Univ. Bordeaux, France
Design by Mathematics is an inventive design approach dedicated to high performance integrated circuits. It is based on mathematical principles and techniques, such as Riemann's integration or Fourier's transformation. These mathematical tools are used to optimize a specific signal processing and conditioning. A given tool behavior is then copied as much as possible within a silicon implementation, yielding to mixed-signal integrated circuits that demonstrate innovative system architectures and disruptive approaches. While using Design by Mathematics does not imply one will achieve better performances than when using classical design techniques, it offers a substitute that can counteract key technical bottlenecks and pave the way to new opportunities. In this talk several Design by Mathematics examples will be presented, focusing on wireless systems. These systems include next generation standards such as 5G and its carrier aggregation technique in the radio frequency range. Fourier's and Walsh's transformations will used, as well as Fourier's recombination and Riemann's integration, for either the receiver path or the transmitter path of a system.
WSD-2	: Designing Energy Efficient Radios for Emerging Low Power Standards
Ramesh Harjani
Ramesh Harjani, Univ. of Minnesota
Emerging low power radios are going to be required for IoT, WBAN and even 5G. In this tutorial we will explore the power dissipation limiters of current radio architecture and propose solutions to counteract them. In particular, we will describe details for a standard compliant 2.4GHz low power radio architecture for IEEE 802.15.16 WBAN radios that uses both a new receiver architecture and a new transmitter architecture to approach the single milliwatt power level while being standard compliant.
WSD-3	: Principles of Noise-Cancelling Receivers With Wide Dynamic Range
Asad Abidi
Asad Abidi, UC Los Angeles
WSD-4	: A Wideband Single-PLL Multi-Channel and Multi-Band Car Radio Receiver with High-Resolution DS ADCs
Lucien Breems
Lucien Breems, NXP Semiconductors, The Netherlands
A novel single-PLL, fixed-oscillator, wideband multi-tuner architecture is presented for concurrent multi-band and multi-channel car radio reception based on wideband and high-resolution A/D converters. This architecture simplifies the LO and clock generation, while it also prevents oscillator pulling and spurs which are notorious for classical narrow-band multi-tuner solutions. An implementation of a wide-band HD radio & DAB/T-DMB receiver will be shown, demonstrating best-in-class blocker performance (DAB FoS up to 70dBc) in combination with state-of-the-art DAB sensitivity down to -102dBm. The design aspects of a high-performance 2.2GHz DS ADC with -102dBc THD are presented that also enables the wideband fixed-oscillator receiver concept for the very performance demanding automotive AM/FM radio standards.
WSD-5	: Mmwave Transceivers in Nanoscale CMOS
Khaled Khalaf, imec, Belgium
WSD-6	: 5G Race for 1-10Gb/s - cellular and/or mmWave, friends and/or foes?
Aleksandar Tasic
Aleksandar Tasic, Qualcomm
Transceiver architectures and circuits for the 5G technologies will be reviewed in this presentation. Gb/s data-rates over the air could be achieved in the sub-6GHz cellular bands as well as sub-60GHz and sub-30GHz mmWave bands. 5G technologies that support data-rates in excess of 1GB/s could be implemented in any of the existing bands as long as they yield. RF front-end, transceiver, and modem architectures that could offer the highest (by humans noticeable) data-rate in handsets would be the obvious winner, no matter what RF frequency they 'pick' from the air. In this presentation, the sub-6GHz cellular transceiver architectures would be compared to the sub-60GHz and sub-30GHz mmWave transceiver architectures in terms of performance, area, power consumption, and cost. Could the big bandwidth of the mmWave design win over the high-order modulation schemes of the well-established cellular design? Or would the cellular and mmWave transceivers have to co-exist and co-work together for the best of both worlds? These are just two of the questions that will be addressed in this presentation.
WSD-7	: Gigabit/s Over-the-Air Throughput in Nanoscale CMOS
Renaldi Winoto
Renaldi Winoto, Marvell
Gigabit Wireless LAN is here! Sustained, multi-client, Gbp/s WLAN is entering wide-spread deployment in enterprise networks. WLAN is on the cusp of being able to replace wired Ethernet as we know it, not only in consumer application, but also in enterprise and industrial applications. This talk will discuss the key techniques that enables Gbp/s WLAN transceiver, including digital-intensive circuit architectures in PLL and transmitter design. Built-in, self-calibration necessary to obtain a high throughput will also be discussed.
WSD-8	: Multi-Standard RF and mmW Transmitters Based on Semi-Digital FIR-DAC
Antoine Frappé
Antoine Frappé, IEMN – ISEN Lille, France
Wireless devices support multiple functionalities using a multitude of standards. In the WiFi ecosystem, for example, we have seen the addition of the new Gb/s flavors of 802.11ac and 802.11ad (WiGig). Hence, new WiFi-supporting devices have to deliver superior performance in each of these standards, and should operate seamlessly from standard to standard. These requirements demand replacing traditional designs with innovative solutions at system, architecture and circuit levels. In this work, we tackle the physical level challenges with a configurable transmitter architecture. This work demonstrates the concept of a single-PHY transmitter baseband architecture for 11ac and 11ad standards, as a supporting example. The core of the proposed transmitter is a configurable mixed-signal digital-to-analog converter, which has been fabricated in 28 nm FDSOI technology. It embeds semi-digital filtering tailored for four WiFi modes (20, 40, 80 and 160 MHz bandwidths) and the 1.76 GHz bandwidth of the 60 GHz WiGig standard.
WSE:
CMOSpace: Challenges and Accomplishments of Designing Advanced CMOS SoC for Space Communication and Instrumentation
Tim LaRocca, Bryan Wu
As the cost per launch decreases with the advent of re-usable rockets such as the SpaceX Falcon9 and the size of satellites reducing to 1U Cube-Sat dimensions, the demand for miniaturized yet reliable RF and mixed-signal electronics is on the rise. Current military architectures will likely include disaggregated systems of smaller platforms working collaboratively to execute missions at lower cost and with increased responsiveness. Commercial enterprises such as OneWeb are looking to cover the globe with broadband access through thousands of LEO satellites. And NASA continues to push state-of-the-art in deep space sensing constrained by very low power satellite systems. With low-power and high integration capability, CMOS technology provides a platform for creating a System-on-Chip (SoC) with digital, mixed-signal and RF/mmWave circuitry for SWaP reduction. This workshop will discuss issues and challenges relevant to the design and reliability of CMOS technology requirements for space based electronics. The workshop will start with a review of a CubeSat electronic requirements, progress through radiation and semiconductor effects and delve into system demonstrations of space electronics for digital and RF/mmWave. This is a great start for engineers to be acquainted with the adventure of space.
WSE-1	: Requirements and Capabilities of the Standardized CubeSat platform for supporting CMOS SoC Development
Adam Gunderson
Adam Gunderson, Northrop Grumman
The CubeSat platform was initially created by Jordi Puig-Suari and Robert Twiggs as an educational tool to provide a full end-to-end mission design and space-flight experience to university students pursuing two to four year undergraduate and graduate level studies. Since the CubeSat's invention and subsequent release of the CubeSat Design Specification it has been widely and successfully adopted by many educational and research institutions. These institutions have used CubeSats to space qualify new technology and provide new science measurements to many under-served research communities. Recently, CubeSat's have gained more traction in commercial and other governmental sectors focused on operational use. This has driven a need for new capabilities that still adhere to CubeSat standards while keeping with the risk tolerant design nature that allows for innovative mission designs and technology demonstrations.
WSE-2	: Utilizing Advanced Semiconductor Device Technologies in the Natural Space Environment
Jonny Pellish
Jonny Pellish, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
During the past ten years, the number and type advanced device technologies deployed in the space environment has increased dramatically. This trend has been magnified by the number of organizations designing, building, and deploying platforms to low-Earth orbit and other locations in the Solar System. This increase has been driven by many factors, including ever-improving radiation-hardened by design (RHBD) techniques as well as serendipitous radiation tolerance in advanced technology nodes. Furthermore, many current and future aerospace applications demand capabilities that can only be realized with device feature sizes at and below 40 nm, 3-dimensional integration, and other techniques considering the substantial constraints placed on size, weight, power, and cost. In addition to application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and more traditional radiation-hardened components, many aerospace organizations are also expanding their use of automotive-grade devices and other enhanced commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) offerings in order to expand the design space while trying to constrain risk. While advanced semiconductor device technologies enable many critical applications, their utilization in the space environment requires special considerations.
WSE-3	: CMOS-Compatible SOI MESFETs for Extreme Environment Electronics
Trevor Thornton
Trevor Thornton, Arizona State Univ.
Silicon metal-semiconductor field effect transistors (MESFETs) can be fabricated using commercial SOI CMOS technologies without changing the CMOS process flow. With no fragile gate oxide, the silicon MESFETs can be designed to have breakdown voltages in excess of 30V, greatly exceeding that of the baseline MOSFETs. MESFETs with gate lengths as short as 150nm have current drives of >1A with fT and fmax greater than 30 and 45GHz respectively. They are also radiation tolerant (TID>300krad) and capable of operating over a wide temperature range (-180° to +150°C) making them ideally suited for space applications in extreme environments. This presentation will focus on the DC and RF characteristics of MESFETs fabricated using a 45nm SOI CMOS technology. Data from total ionizing dose measurements will be presented along with a wide temperature range TOM3 Spice model. The ability to integrate enhanced voltage MESFETs on the same die as ULSI CMOS has the potential for significant savings in size, weight and cost for space electronics, with the added benefit of increased reliability. As demonstrators for the integrated 45nm SOI CMOS-MESFET technology we will describe results from an unconditionally stable low-dropout regulator for point-of-load DC power management, and an RF power amplifier with Pout > 1W.
WSE-4	: Designing with CMOS for Space Applications
Anthony Amort
Anthony Amort, Boeing
The challenge of developing state-of-the-art CMOS microelectronics for space applications is mitigating the effects of the space radiation environment. Radiation-hardened-by-Design (RHBD) has been demonstrated as an effective approach to leverage advances in commercial integrated circuit fabrication to provide improved performance, power, availability, and reliability for space applications. RHBD has demonstrated continued success in using design methods to achieve high levels of radiation hardness. New approaches to hardening mixed-signal designs that take advantage of the properties of modern CMOS processes have been developed. Examples of applications, development considerations, and analysis techniques will be covered in this session.
WSE-5	: CMOS Systems-on-Chip for NASA Millimeter-Wave & THz Space Instruments
Adrian Tang, JPL NASA
In this discussion we will first introduce the exciting Earth science, planetary science and astrophysics investigations that are performed by JPL and NASA at millimeter-wave and terahertz frequencies, describing several recent results by instruments operating in this wavelength regime. Then we will then discuss the important role CMOS system-on-chip (SoC) technology now plays in these instruments, and the fundamental challenges (noise, multiplicative-effects, radiation effects) that CMOS based instruments face in delivering the level of fidelity required for NASA's science investigations. The talk will discuss two examples of CMOS SoC based instruments from recent NASA programs including a 600 GHz side-band separated spectrometer for investigation of Europa, Titan, Enceladus, and a 100 GHz in-situ spectrometer system for investigation of comet and asteroid volatiles targeting the planned NASA Comet Surface Sample Return (CSSR) mission.
WSE-6	: RHBD for Space – Addressing the Spectrum of Applications
Andrew Kelly
Andrew Kelly, BAE
RHBD is a not just a library or physical solution, in order to address mission goals (radiation, extreme environments compared to commercial), a system-level approach needs to be considered in the SoC. Understanding the use environment, both from a reliability and radiation response, drives the optimized design approach at both the macro/standard cell, and logic/behavioral levels. Physical modifications are required for some missions and we have migrated commercial IP to work in space applications in many technology nodes (multiple approaches to achieve a range of hardness levels). Integration of functions covering multiple frequencies from RF to KHz, also presents design challenges while maintaining space application goals. A discussion of these trades and approaches will be discussed.
WSE-7	: Advanced Millimeter-wave Package for Space and Beyond
Jean-Marc Rollin
Jean-Marc Rollin, Nuvotronics
This presentation discusses the benefits associated with the design of modular, scalable mm-wave PolyStrata™ based circuits for commercial and aerospace applications. The additive PolyStrata™ process technology was developed under the 3D-MERFS DARPA-funded research program to improve the performance and reduce the packaging cost of mm-wave systems. The technology characteristics include low loss, high component density, 3D-stacking and high isolation. 15 years later, this technology has become a key enabler for next generation Millimeter Wave (MMW) radar and communications systems. Presented herein are examples of a variety of modules, ranging from ultra-compact, low loss mm-wave filters qualified for space applications to complete PolyStrata phased array developed for NASA next generation instruments for remote sensing. Also discussed is the incorporation of PolyStrata™ passives components in T/R modules that improve the efficiency and increase power output.
WSF:
Efficiency Enhancement Techniques for Linear and High Bandwidth Power Amplifiers
Ali Afsahi, Patrick Reynaert
Broadcom Ltd., KU Leuven
Increasing demand for higher data rate has forced the communication standers to use higher bandwidth and more complex modulation schemes which require a very linear power amplifier. Operating at back off power to meet linearity degrades efficiency significantly. This workshop covers various efficiency enhancement and linearization techniques for linear and high bandwidth power amplifiers.
WSF-1	: Physical Foundations and Practical Implementations of Efficient RF Power Amplifiers
Earl McCune
Earl McCune, RF Communications Consulting
Ohm's Law forces the efficiency of linear amplifiers to remain below 50%, often well below 50%, leaving any practical amplifier achieving higher efficiency to not use linear circuitry. Many such proposals have been put forth over the past century. These are briefly reviewed and collected into 3 major groups. One major impediment to efficient RF power amplifiers is the signal modulation types that have been selected by the Standards working groups. Why this is so, and what physics allows in getting around this problem, is discussed.
WSF-2	: Si Envelope Tracking Power Amplifiers for High Peak-to-Average Power (PAPR) Signals
Donald Kimball
Donald Kimball, Maxentric
High PAPR signals such as LTE-A cellular communications present a potential poor trade-off between efficiency and linearity. Power supply modulation is one of several techniques that can avoid this trade-off, and achieve high efficiency and with adequate linearity. This workshop presentation will focus primarily on the polar modulation method for both base-stations and mobile terminals (e.g. smart phones). Si circuits for supply modulators will be discussed, and how they can be applied to various classes of microwave power amplifiers (e.g. Class AB, F, etc). Both analog and digital envelope power modulators will be compared. Linearization methods will be presented tailored to this technique. The challenge of modulation bandwidth limitation will be addressed with several solutions. Finally, multi-carrier systems with potential digital beam steering applications using envelope-of-the-envelope techniques will be shown.
WSF-3	: Switched-Capacitor Power Amplifiers for Efficient Digital RF Transmission
Jeffrey Walling
Digital Power Amplifiers (DPAs) such as the switched capacitor PA (SCPA) have provided a significant level of flexibility in SoC design. SCPAs provide a flexible, linear output, while also providing a digital interface that can interact directly with the DSP. In this talk, we will detail several SCPA architectures and provide example designs and some pros and cons for their use in varying wireless transmission applications.
WSF-4	: Digital Outphasing Techniques for Wideband WLAN Radios
Paolo Madoglio
Paolo Madoglio, Intel Corp.
An outphasing digital transmitter including open-loop delay-based phase modulator and class-D switching PA is presented. The PA uses a transformer power combining configuration with reduced losses at back-off power; class-D PA operation takes advantage of switching speed offered by CMOS technology scaling to achieve good linearity performance. System level topics, including digital front end line-up and phase modulation, will be discussed. Measurement from a 32nm test chip of the TX operating in 2.4GHz band with WiFi 20/40MHz signal will be shown as well as system simulation for 5-6GHz band with 80/160MHz signals.
WSF-5	: Doherty Architecture for Mixed-Signal Power Amplifiers and Mm-Wave Power Amplifiers
Hua Wang, Georgia Tech.
Doherty power amplifier (PA) architecture offers a unique back-off PA efficiency enhancement behavior, which is highly desirable for amplifying broadband modulation signals with high peak-to-average power ratios (PAPR). Recently, there is an increasing interest to employ Doherty PA architectures for a wide variety of mobile communication and wireless connectivity applications. In this talk, we will first present an overview of benefits and design challenges of Doherty PAs. We will then present several CMOS mixed-signal Doherty PA examples that leverage both digital PA operations and analog PA techniques. These mixed-signal Doherty PAs enable precise controls of the Doherty main/auxiliary amplifiers to achieve optimum Doherty "active load-modulation" and optimum back-off efficiency enhancement. Moreover, the reconfigurability of these mixed-signal Doherty PAs enables PA linearity enhancement and robust Doherty performance under antenna load variations. These mixed-signal Doherty PAs can also be combined with other PA techniques to achieve hybrid PA architectures for further PA efficiency and linearity enhancement. In addition, we will also present the use of Doherty architecture in mm-wave linear PA designs for multi-band 5G applications. Supporting multiple 5G bands, such mm-wave linear Doherty PA enhances average PA efficiency, relaxes thermal management in 5G massive MIMO systems, and amplifies high-order QAM modulations without any digital-predistortion (DPD).
WSF-6	: A Self Destructive Phenomenon Affecting High Efficient and High Bandwidth PA's Performance , the Memory Effect
Farbod Aram
Farbod Aram, ProjectFT
High bandwidth signals such as 802.11ax for wifi and future 5G networks demand a very high linearity and memory less PA. This very high spec is for the first time not only challenging CMOS PAs but also all GaAs and SiGe PAs as well. In this discussion subject of memory effects and its mechanism that leads itself to serious loss of efficiency and power delivery in high power PAs is explored.
WSF-7	: Digital Signal Processing Techniques for Efficient Power Amplifiers
Paul Draxler
Paul Draxler, Qualcomm Corp.
The performance of efficiency optimized amplifiers (Class AB, Class J, Doherty or Envelope Tracking) can be enhanced significantly by digital signal processing algorithms, especially in linearity (EVM) and spectral regrowth (ACLR). At one level, performing crest factor reduction (CFR) assists the entire Tx chain, by not pushing the blocks to the signal peaks (to unreasonable levels) only to saturate the power amplifier (PA) further down the chain. There various digital predistortion (DPD) techniques that are used to compensate for PA distortion: memoryless compression, compression with memory, coordination of multiple drive signals, just to list a few. These algorithms, strategies and approaches will be reviewed in this workshop talk.
WSG:
Energy-Efficient RF Transceiver IC and System Design for Healthcare Applications
Yao-Hong Liu, Gernot Hueber
IMEC, NXP
The RF transceiver is typically one of the most power consuming building blocks in wireless sensor devices for different wearable/implantable healthcare monitoring, e.g., heart-rate monitor, capsule endoscope, etc. On the other hand, the efficiency of the RF transceiver has been dramatically reduced in the past few years, thanks to both CMOS technology scaling and the development of the new low-power/low-voltage digital-intensive design approaches, which enables many new wireless healthcare applications. In this workshop, we will discuss several latest wireless technologies for these applications, including Bluetooth Low Energy, Medical Implantable Communication Services (MICS), Body channel communication, and wideband wireless interface for neural recording/stimulation. The experts from both industrial and academic will introduce the topics from market, potential market, to regulations. In addition, this workshop will especially focus on the discussion of various design challenges, system requirements and potential solutions in developing energy-efficient transceiver ICs for the healthcare applications.
WSG-1	: ULP Wireless Technologies in the Healthcare Domain
Christian Bachmann
Christian Bachmann, IMEC
This talk will give an overview of current ULP wireless solutions in the healthcare domain as well as present an outlook to potential future trends. First different wireless application areas in the healthcare domain, both for in-body and around-the-body use cases, will be presented. Second, a summary of existing ultra low power wireless communication technologies for those as well as an outlook to emerging wireless technologies in the field will be given.
WSG-2	: A Body Channel Communication (BCC) Transceiver Design for Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN)
Hyunwoo Cho
Hyunwoo Cho, KAIST
The body channel communication (BCC) which uses the human body as a communication channel hase been getting more and more attention due to its good transceiver performance compared with traditional RF communiation including narrow band (NB) or ultra wide band (UWB). Thanks to the good performance of the BCC, the BCC was included in the IEEE 802.15.6 WBAN standard (which is called human body communication, HBC). In this talk, I will introduce you the BCC including the communication principle, channel analysis, optimized transceiver design and implementation results. Also, we will have a chance to discuss the future application of the BCC.
WSG-3	: Radar-based Health Monitoring: System Requirement, Recent Advances, and Design Challenges
Marco Mercuri
Marco Mercuri, IMEC
Radar technologies have been recently investigated in healthcare of which the general public will benefit in terms of diagnostics, treatment, and detection of emergency situation. They represent the new emerging solution to promote the health both in home and clinical environments, and are also predicted to proliferate in the next years. This is in line with the development of the Internet of the Things. Although such remote sensing has the limitation that only biomedical parameters that are based on mechanical movements and/or distance can be monitored, radar operation allows characterizing already various biomedical parameters of strong interest in several applications with the great advantage on being non-invasive. This presentation discusses system requirements, design challenges, practical limitations, and solutions of recent advances in health monitoring using radar technologies, presenting also some experimental results.
WSG-4	: Bluetooth Low Energy Communication for Implantable Medical Devices
Perry Li
Perry Li, St. Jude Medical
Implantable medical devices such as devices for Cardiac Rhythm Management (Pacemakers and ICD's) and Neuromodulation treat a wide range of medical conditions and have benefitted tremendously from the advancement of wireless communications. The recent introduction of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communication capability in these devices offers further value from both the patient and physician's perspective. This presentation will touch on some of the benefits that BLE provides while detailing aspects of the Bluetooth Low Energy standard. Some of the technical challenges of implementing a BLE transceiver in an implantable medical device will be highlighted, such as power constraints and performance requirements. Finally, this presentation will conclude with a discussion on future opportunities made possible with BLE communication.
WSG-5	: Wireless Medical Device Communication – Performance Considerations, System Design and Recent Innovations
Peter Bradley
Peter Bradley, Microsemi
Communicating to within and around the body presents many unique challenges associated with the small size, very low power and attenuation of human tissue. The key requirements, regulations, standards and system issues will be presented. The capabilities of new technology for communicating to medical devices will be presented. Facilitating developments include recent advances in low power architectures and the acceptance of a world-wide band for medical implant communication in the 401-406 MHz (Medical Implant Communication Service) range. Further new spectrum rule changes support medical device operation at higher frequencies such as allocations neighboring the worldwide 2.4 GHz ISM band. Wireless medical communications are enabling new applications and improved health-care with examples presented from a range of areas including endoscopic camera capsule, remote monitoring of implantable defibrillators, neuro-stimulators, hearing aids, and blood oximeters.
WSG-6	: Ultra-Low Power Radio and Antenna Design for Cubic-mm Sensor Nodes
David Wentzloff
David Wentzloff, Univ. of Michigan
Over the last two decades, computers have evolved from the laptop to the smartphone to today's cm-scale IoT devices. At each step, the volume has reduced by 2-3 orders of magnitude, and with it so has the size of the battery. However, the functionality has remained constant or even increased, a trend that shows little sign of slowing. The next logical step in computing are millimeter-scale devices with similar features found in today's smartphones. With thin-film batteries, CMOS scaling, low-power sensors, and advanced packaging, these mm-scale devices have now become a reality. This presentation focuses on recent advances in wireless communication circuits, antennas, and protocols for mm-scale sensor nodes, for implantable and on-body applications. Challenges resulting from miniature antennas, thin-film batteries, and operation from a
WSG-7	: An Ultra-Low-Power IEEE802.15.6/Proprietary Mode Radio SoC for Medical Applications
Kazuaki Oishi
Kazuaki Oishi, Fujitsu Lab
An energy-efficient radio SoC with RFFE (RF front-end), DBB (digital baseband) and MCU (microcontroller) for medical/ healthcare applications in the 315/400 MHz bands is presented. The SoC is compliant with the IEEE 802.15.6 standard in the 402-405MHz MICS (Medical Implant Communication Service) band and the 420-450MHz medical telemetry band, and also supports a proprietary high data rate mode (3.6Mb/s) to support applications such as EEG (electrocardiogram). The ADPLL (all-digital phase-locked loop)-based two-point modulation transmitter is adopted to support wideband modulation beyond the PLL bandwidth. The total power consumption of RX and TX are 3.5mW (3.6Mb/s, -77dBm sensitivity) and 3.0mW (3.6Mb/s, -16dBm PA output) respectively enabling energy efficiency of less than 1nJ/bit.
WSG-8	: Wireless Bioelectronics
Ada Poon
Ada Poon, Stanford Univ.
Bioelectronic modulation of neural activity has the potential to provide therapeutic control over diverse organ functions addressing unmet clinical needs. Towards this goal, significant progress has been made in the development of miniaturized electronics, and high resolution and mechanically flexible neural interfaces for both research and clinical systems. Their long-term access to neural structures, however, remains constrained by technological challenges in powering the device. In this talk, I will describe two new methods for electromagnetic energy transfer that exploit near-field interactions with biological tissue to wirelessly power tiny devices anywhere in the body. I will discuss engineering and experimental challenges to realizing such interfaces, including a pacemaker that is smaller than a grain of rice, a conformal vagus nerve stimulator, and a fully internalized neuromodulation platform. These devices can act as bioelectronic medicines, capable of precisely modulating local activity, that may be more effective treatments than drugs which act globally throughout the body.
WSH:
Frequency Synthesis and Clock Distribution for Massive MIMO and Phased-Arrays in 5G Communication Systems and Beyond
Jeyanandh Paramesh, Xiang Gao, Jaber Khoja
Carnegie Mellon Univ., Marvell, IDT
Next generation communication systems (5G and beyond) seek to bridge the gap between the projected demand and supply of mobile data traffic through a combination of new system techniques and access to new spectrum below 6 GHz and especially in several millimeter-wave bands from 15 GHz to 86 GHz. In these systems, the design of frequency synthesizers that can access several such bands with low phase noise, spur levels and frequency granularity remains a critical block. Furthermore, "Massive MIMO" – which consists of a large number of antennas at the access point – is a promising technology to meet the high data rate and quality of service requirements of 5G wireless systems. Achieving stringent phase-noise specifications and scalable LO distribution to maintain phase coherence across the different units in the MIMO array is a critical challenge. This workshop will present the latest trends in the design of such synthesizers.
WSH-1	: Phase Noise Limits of On-Chip mm-Wave Oscillators
Hossein Hashemi, Alireza Imani
Hossein Hashemi, Univ. of Southern California
WSH-2	: A 2-26 GHz Highly Flexible Synthesizer in 32nm SOI CMOS
Bodhi Sadhu
Bodhi Sadhu, IBM
Modern wireless communication systems require agile support for an increasing number carrier frequencies. The objective of this work is to build a single PLL which is sufficiently flexible such that it can be used in a field programmable radio, or a radio system capable of being reconfigured in the field to any of a diverse set of radio communication standards. An obstacle to producing such a reconfigurable radio is that the noise, frequency, and bandwidth requirements for different standards vary substantially, in turn necessitating multiple PLLs, each optimized for a particular application. To meet the goals of our research effort, it is necessary to produce a PLL which is reconfigurable in multiple dimensions yet maintains sufficiently strong performance (in terms of metrics such as phase noise and locking time) such that the resulting synthesizer is still competitive with the best-performing single-application CMOS PLLs, and can therefore effectively replace a set of application specific PLLs. This presentation will provide an overview of recently demonstrated VCO and PLL designs/architectures which have made the above-described vision of a highly flexible monolithic PLL possible.
WSH-3	: On CMOS Clock Generation with Low Phase Error
Eric Klumperink
Eric Klumperink, Univ. of Twente
The phase accuracy of CMOS circuits for clock generation and distribution is fundamentally limited by component mismatch and noise. Both phase mismatch and phase noise, and hence timing jitter, can be improved by admittance scaling at the cost of power consumption. To benchmark and optimize circuits in a power efficient way, it is useful to define a Figure of Merit (FoM) that normalizes for this admittance level scaling effect. Based on this Jitter-Power FoM several circuit techniques for accurate clock generation will be discussed, i.e.: 1) Multi-phase clock generation, comparing a delay locked loop versus a shift register or divider 2) The choice of the logic family, comparing dynamic transmission gate logic with current mode logic 3) Digital to Time Conversion (DTC) and its use in frequency synthesis
WSH-4	: Design Consideration of Integrated Frequency Synthesizers in CMOS SOCs
Sheng Ye
Sheng Ye, Maxlinear
Modern large scale SOCs combine high performance radio IP along with large ASIC content. Meanwhile the requirement for high performance PLLs put more constraints on the design with limited power supply choices, close proximity to noisy ASIC blocks and large variation of junction temperatures. Multiple standards requires multiple PLLs to coexist on the same SOC. Balancing the often conflicting needs among different IP blocks requires the frequency synthesizer to be designed and optimized at architecture level. This talk covers design considerations in the frequency synthesis of the modern CMOS SOC design including tradeoff in frequency coverage, tuning range, spur and coupling between different PLLs.
WSH-5	: Frequency Synthesis and Clock Distribution Techniques for Phased-array Technology and Massive MIMO
Arun Natarajan
Arun Natarajan, Oregon State Univ.
Emerging wireless networks at RF and mm-wave are addressing the demand for higher network capacity by focusing on multiple-element arrays for interference mitigation and for meeting challenging link budgets. Maintaining coherence between elements is critical for such phased-arrays/MIMO systems, particularly as arrays evolve towards large number of elements such as massive MIMO base-stations. In addition, wide range of operating frequencies require wide LO tuning range. Hence, scalable, power-efficient, frequency generation and distribution approaches that support low phase noise and wide tuning range for large-element arrays are of interest at RF and mm-wave. In this talk, we will present a broad overview of approaches for LO generation and phase coherence in large-scale arrays. Techniques for achieving wide tuning range will be presented along with trade-offs associated with traditional clock distribution schemes. A scalable clock distribution approach that ensures low phase noise and jitter with increasing number of elements will also be presented in the context of an implementation targeted at emerging mmwave 5G networks.
WSH-6	: CMOS mm-Wave Phased-Array Frequency Synthesis
Howard Luong
Howard Luong, Hong Kong Univ. of Science and Technology
Advanced design techniques for CMOS mm-Wave phased-array frequency synthesis will be presented. Firstly, in a 4-path LO generation system for 60-GHz phased-array receivers, a frequency tripler with a proposed locking-range enhancement technique is proposed to relax both the frequency and the phase shift of injection-locked-oscillator-based phase shifters for high linearity and low power. Fabricated in a 65-nm CMOS process, the 4-path LO generation system measures linear phase range > ±90°, amplitude variation < ±0.4 dB, phase resolution of 22.5° while drawing 85 mA at 1V. With a successive-approximation algorithm to perform automatic phase detection and tuning, the maximum phase errors is reduced from 22.0° to 1.5°. Secondly, a 0.6-V 14.1-mW 100-GHz 65-nm transformer-based phase-locked loop (PLL) with embedded phase shifters is demonstrated with phase resolution of 3.9°, amplitude variation < ±0.1 dB, and phase noise of -88 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset from 100 GHz.
WSH-7	: All-Digital PLL based Frequency Synthesis
Ashoke Ravi
Ashoke Ravi, Intel
Digital fractional-n PLLs are a promising choice for frequency synthesizers for wireless SOCs because of their potential for area reduction, process-voltage temperature (PVT) insensitive loop dynamics, inherent re-configurability and ease of porting from one technology node to the next. A number of examples have been demonstrated in recent literature for cellular and connectivity RFICs in the sub-6GHz bands. However, it is not trivial to extend such DPLL based frequency synthesizers to meet the stringent requirements of the 5G standard. The emerging 5G standard seeks to extend wireless technology into new use cases and markets and to address an anticipated ~1000X increase in demand for bandwidth. It is expected to incorporate (a) incremental enhancements to 4G cellular (higher order modulations, more channel bandwidth/bonding), (b) LTE and WiFi aggregation, (c) massive MIMO systems, and (d) operation in new mm-wave frequency bands, in order to improve the data rates, latency and quality of service. Each of these presents unique challenges to frequency synthesis. In this talk we will present an overview of circuits and architectures to achieve the better phase noise performance expected in 5G. We will next discuss approaches to realizing power efficient DPLL synthesizers in the mm-wave bands. Finally, extending frequency synthesis to cover massive MIMO systems requires a scalable solution. So we will conclude with a discussion of scalable LO generation implementations.
WSH-8	: Digital Loop Filter Architectures for Millimeter Wave Frequency Synthesizers Based on ALL Digital PLL Single Bit Binary Phase Detection
Pasquale Lamanna
Pasquale Lamanna, Huawei
In All Digital PLLs for Frequency Synthesis efforts are made in designing the TDC/BPD and DCO with low quantization noise and high performance capabilities. Minimum effort has been put in to the design of the loop filter. Mainly, the Filter remains a digital representation of the Analog implementation used in the well known Analog PLLs. This session will analyze from a theoretical point of view the required characteristics of a digital Loop filter to maximize ADPLL performances when a Single Bit phase detector is used.
WSH-9	: Component Design for Millimeter-Wave All-Digital Phase-Locked Loops
Jeyanandh Paramesh
Jeyanandh Paramesh, Carnegie Mellon Univ.
[Backup speaker]
WSM:
Millimeter Wave for 5G: Which Systems with which Frequency Band - 5G RF Transceiver Design and System Aspects
Pierre Busson, Andre Hanke
STMicroelectronics, Intel Deutschland GmbH
In the last two decades data-rates in wireless communication systems have been increasing exponentially. This trend is continuing with the fifth generation of wireless systems (5G) that will require peak rates in excess of Gb/s for many users, several hundred thousands of simultaneous connections for massive sensor deployments, and substantially improved spectral efficiency. This workshop is focused on current state-of-the-art of 5G band and future directions of the key circuit techniques and system architectures for base station or between the Handset, or other portable devices, and the cell, or mini-cell, micro-cell, pico-cell base stations. All aspects covering normalization Systems, Architecture, and low power design solutions for beam orientation will be discussed.
WSM-1	: Why Should 5G go for mmWave (e.g. 28GHz) ?
Uwe Rüddenklau
Uwe Rüddenklau, Infineon Technologie AG
mm Wave frequencies are a new frontier for 5G but have lack of clarity until WRC2019. The use cases should define where mm Wave plays a role. A prominent example is the 2018 Olympics in Korea intend to use 28GHz. Nevertheless there are challenges ahead in regulation, standardization and implementation which require common efforts from the whole value chain to make it happen.
WSM-2	: 5G Operator Vision by Samsung UK
Maziar Nekovee
Maziar Nekovee, Samsung Group
WSM-3	: 5G System and Design by Intel
Jonathan Jensen
Jonathan Jensen, Intel Corp.
by Intel
WSM-4	: Requirements on Power Amplifiers and PLLs for 5G at mmW Frequencies
Lars Sundström
Lars Sundström, Ericsson
In this presentation we focus on trends of power amplifiers and PLLs being two of the most discussed RF components within 3GPP towards standardization of 5G at mmW frequencies. The decreasing PA output power and power-added efficiency for increasing carrier frequencies challenge the choice of waveforms and spectral emission requirements. PLL performance degrades with increasing carrier frequencies and affects attainable error vector magnitude and the choice of the 5G numerology. Furthermore, the use of array antenna systems puts additional constraints on RF components, e.g. in terms of accuracy and tracking over the array. We discuss the present state of 3GPP 5G specifications (Release 15) and its implications on requirements for power amplifiers and PLLs.
WSM-5	: Industrial Packaging & Antenna for Consumer Grade mm-Wave Products
Frederic Gianesello
Frederic Gianesello, STMicroelectronics
The rapid growth of wireless data drives new design challenges for RF chipset and handheld/mobile device manufacturers along with carriers. The massive data traffic to be supported by wireless networks requires the development of cost effective high speed and low power wireless link (both from end user and network side). To address this challenge, millimeter wave technologies (WiGig standard at 60 GHz, backhauling in E band …) have emerged as promising solutions in order to offer multi gigabit per second data rate at low power. Moreover, the possibility to integrate those wireless systems using silicon based technologies (either CMOS or BiCMOS) enables to offer cost effective solutions required by consumer markets. But millimeter wave technologies do not only require cost effective RF ICs achieved in advanced silicon technologies, high performances and low cost packaging and antenna technologies are also key issues. This talk will illustrate how industrial organic packaging technology and standard FR4 based HDI any layer PCB technology (used for smartphone board) can help to develop innovative and cost effective mmw packages and antennas (focusing here on 60 GHz applications).
WSM-6	: Phased Arrays for 5G Systems at 28 GHz and 60 GHz
WSM-7	: Millimeter-wave Transceiver System Design for 5G Mobile Network
Kenichi Okada
Kenichi Okada, Tokyo Institute of Technology
In this presentation, possible 5G frequency bands will be discussed from the viewpoint of device technology, data rate, communication distance, array size, etc. Some millimeter-wave CMOS transceiver will be also introduced, achieving tens of Gbps data rate.
WSM-8	: Millimeter-Wave Systems for 5G
Brian Floyd
Brian Floyd, North Carolina State Univ.
: This talk will highlight both phased-array front-ends and tunable receivers for use in mm-wave 5G systems. One key requirement for mm-wave arrays is achieving improved power efficiency. For basestations, this can reduce cooling requirements whereas for user equipment, this can be translated into reduced array size. With this goal in mind, harmonic-tuned SiGe power amplifiers at 28-GHz will first be presented which achieve 35% peak PAE and up to 13% PAE at 6 dB back off. To further improve back-off efficiency, a dual-vector Doherty beamformer is introduced and demonstrated at 60 GHz in SiGe BiCMOS. This beamformer achieves 7% PAE at 6-dB back-off and allows for a reconfigurable linearity/efficiency trade-off. Another goal for mm-wave systems is achieving compact, low-power, and widely tunable performance. Towards these ends, a mixer-first receiver will be presented which can be tuned across 20 to 30 GHz and achieves 7-8 dB noise figure at 41 mW power consumption.
WSN:
Passive Integrated Circuits
Xun Luo, Roberto Gomez-Garcia, Guoan Wang
Univ. of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Univ. of Alcala, Univ. of South Carolina
With the ever-increasing advances on the field of modern wireless communications technologies-e.g., 5G and internet-of-things (IoT)-, the design of compact and multi-functional transceivers to meet the stringent requirements demanded by such systems remains as a great challenge. In this context, high-performance integrated passive devices (IPDs) are considered key building circuits for their development. These components are based on novel miniaturized structures and specific technologies that can be utilized for the implementation of RF, microwave, millimeter-wave, and THz communication systems. This unique workshop focuses, for the first time, on the area of IPDs and their applications in the context of wireless-communications and sensing scenarios by reporting recent research findings in this exciting field. This includes current progresses about fully-electrically tunable RF passives based on the nano-patterned ferroelectric and ferromagnetic thin films technology, as well as new high-Q micro-electromechanical-system (MEMS) for spectrally-agile filter implementations with wide-band operation, switches, and phase shifters. Miniaturized passive circuits that are integrated with BST technology for the development of reconfigurable IPDs are presented. Furthermore, novel on-chip passive circuits for performance improvement of active circuits using advanced CMOS and SiGe processes are reviewed. Their practical application goes from RF-to-THz bands. Metamaterial-inspired and plasmonic devices are also introduced for compact CMOS passive integration. In addition, multi-function filtering components and integrated antenna sub-system, along with hybrid acoustic-wave-lumped-element-microwave-resonator technologies for the realization of advanced compact microwave filtering devices, are described. Finally, the last advances in the area of RF and microwave passive microsystems for gas/chemical, biological, and nanomaterial-characterization sensing applications are also expounded.
WSN-1	: Integration of Nano-patterned Ferroelectric and Ferromagnetic Thin Films for Fully Electrically Tunable RF Passives
Guoan Wang
Guoan Wang, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC (USA)
The fastest growing wireless communications market has seen dramatic changes in both the requirements on, and the capabilities of the radio to support wireless connections. Tunable RF technologies are enabling new frontiers for reconfigurable RF front ends. Miniaturized multifunctional frequency-agile devices are demanded to support multiple communication standards in current and next generation military and commercial applications. While active components in RF front-ends are experiencing higher levels of co-integration, there is a technological barrier for further integration to achieve miniaturized communication systems due to large amount of discrete RF passives on board. This talk will present the development of frequency agile and fully electrically tunable miniaturized RF devices with the integration of ferromagnetic and ferroelectric thin films and related techniques enabling multifunctional and adaptive radios. First, the need for adaptive and reconfigurable frequency control components in next generation wireless devices will be described. Previous tuning techniques (e.g., RF MEMS) and their performance will be briefly reviewed, followed by application of these components in adaptive wireless systems. Design of novel slow wave structures and their RF applications will be discussed for further miniaturization of RF passives. And finally, integration of slow-wave structures with nano-scale ferromagnetic and ferroelectric (PZT) thin film patterns will be demonstrated and investigated for their efficacy in developing fully electrically tunable RF components (e.g., filter, antenna). Strategies to improve RF characteristics (e.g., Ferromagnetic Resonance Frequency and tuning range) of the integrated thin films will be fully addressed and discussed.
WSN-2	: On-Chip Integrated Passive Circuits for RF, Microwave, MM-Wave, and THz Application
Xun Luo
Xun Luo, UESTC Integrated Circuits Center, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu
With ever-increasing development of the modern communications (i.e., 5G wireless, internet-of-everything, and so on), compact and practical transceivers to meet the requirements of such system remain as great challenges. Thus, integrated passive circuits with high performance as key elements are dramatically demanded and highly developed based on novel miniaturized structures and specific technologies, which can be utilized for the implementation of the RF, microwave, millimeter-wave, and THz communication systems. In this talk, novel integrated passive circuits for RF, microwave, millimeter-wave, and sub-THz applications are introduced for modern communication with enhanced performance. First, the on-chip stepped-impedance inductor with an adjusted high quality-factor is analyzed and employed for RF VCO design with low phase-noise performance. Secondly, based on such type inductor, a stacked stepped-impedance transformer is implemented for the wideband matching network with high passive efficiency for a microwave power amplifier design with a wideband operation (i.e., 3.5-9.5 GHz). Thirdly, a novel on-chip 3D embedded capacitor is introduced for mm-wave application, i.e., 60 GHz DCO. Finally, a new slow-wave sub-THz resonant cell is introduced for the dual-resonance (i.e., 237 and 380 GHz) allocation for the dual-band sub-THz application. All the passive circuits mentioned above are fabricated using the silicon-based technology (i.e., CMOS and SiGe). Good agreements between the measurements and simulations are achieved, which verify the feasibility of the proposed circuits for the practical applications.
WSN-3	: Towards CMOS THz Electronics: Metamaterial and Plasmonic Devices
Hao Yu
Hao Yu, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (SINGAPORE)
Future big-data oriented commuting requires energy efficient I/O links for data migration. Silicon photonic interconnect has great performance for each individual optical component under different process technology but has limited performance after integration. This talk will address this challenge by exploring electrical interconnect solution at Terahertz with source, transmission and detector all realized in CMOS. However, the big problem here is the poor output power of source and huge crosstalk of transmission at Terahertz in CMOS. We show that with the use of meta-device (meta-material, meta-surface, spoof surface-plasmon-polariton), one can effectively manipulate the EM-field such that in-phase power combing can be utilized to combine output power (3-5dBm) of coupled oscillators; and surface-plasmonic wave can be utilized for low-crosstalk (-21dB) on-chip transmission. Demonstrated chips with measurements at 140GHz and 280GHz by standard 65nm CMOS process. What is more, the utilization of meta-device for imaging and sensing at THz in CMOS will also be briefly reported.
WSN-4	: How Can RF MEMS be as Successful as Other MEMS?
James C. M. Hwang
James C. M. Hwang, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015 (USA)
This talk will explore the major challenges for radio-frequency micro-electromechanical systems (RF MEMS) and ways to overcome them. MEMS is ubiquitous. For example, a smartphone can have many MEMS components including microphones/speakers, camera focus/vibration controls, micro-projectors, silicon clocks, position/motion sensors, pressure/humidity/temperature sensors, etc. In comparison, RF MEMS have not been widely used despite their promising performance. In fact, like many new technologies, RF MEMS followed the Gartner hype cycle to reach the peak of inflated expectations around 1995, only to crash to the trough of disillusionment around 2010. However, this also implies that they are now on the slope of enlightenment and may soon reach the plateau of productivity if the major challenges can be overcome in a timely manner. The initial hype of RF MEMS originates from their inherent advantages in terms of lower loss, higher isolation, wider bandwidth, better linearity, and lower power consumption compared to silicon CMOS transistors. However, the hype quickly turned into disillusionment mainly due to the reliability issue. Over the following decade, the reliability issue was mostly overcome by careful choice of design, material and bias conditions, more for capacitive switches than ohmic switches. The main challenge then turned into a yield issue, which was largely overcome by fabrication through standard CMOS foundries instead of dedicated MEMS foundries. Now, the main issue of RF MEMS is insufficient performance advantage to overcome the entry barrier faced by any new technology in competition with the entrenched CMOS technology, such as in existing 3G/4G smartphone sockets. In this case, the savior appears to be the necessity for 5G wireless systems to expand above 6 GHz, which can only enlarge the inherent advantage of RF MEMS, especially capacitive MEMS. However, RF MEMS need to quickly increase their integration level with CMOS circuits. Otherwise, RF MEMS will risk inheriting the curse previously placed on compound semiconductors as "the technology of the future and it will always be."
WSN-5	: High-Power Handling Hot-switching RF-MEMS Switches
Xiaoguang Liu
Xiaoguang Liu, University of California, Davis, CA (USA)
Due to its low insertion loss, high isolation, high linearity, wide bandwidth, and near-zero dc power consumption, radio frequency micro-electromechanical (RF-MEMS) switches have been an emerging technology that can be used in automated test equipment (ATE), wide-band instrumentation, switching matrice, digital attenuators, satellite switching networks and defense systems to achieve superior system performance. Compared with capacitive RF-MEMS switches, metal contact type switches have large bandwidth from dc to RF frequency and are favored in many wide-band applications. However, the reliability issues associated with RF-MEMS contact switches have been a barrier for wider adoption of the technology. In particular, existing RF-MEMS switches exhibit poor hot-switching life-time due to dielectric breakdown and field emission. In this talk, we present several design methodologies for drastically improving the hot-switching reliability of contact-type radio frequency micro-electromechanical (RF-MEMS) switches. In the proposed design, sacrificial contacts are used together with low-resistance contacts to significantly reduce the electric field across the latter. The lower field strength drastically reduces the contact degradation associated with field induced material transfer. Theoretical and numerical modeling show that the proposed protection scheme introduces minimal impact on the switch's RF performance. To realize the protection scheme, we introduce a novel mechanical design that allows the correct protection actuation sequence to be realized using a single actuator and bias electrode. As a demonstration, several 0–40 GHz RF-MEMS switches are fabricated using a robust copper sacrificial layer technique. Compared with unprotected switches, the protected switch design exhibits over 100 times improvement in hot-switching lifetime. In particular, we demonstrate 100–150 million cycle lifetime at 1W hot-switching and 50 million cycles at 2W hot-switching before catastrophic failure, measured in open-air lab environment. Further optimization of the structural design and contact materials is likely to further increase the hot-switching lifetime.
WSN-6	: High-Q Miniature Integrated Passive Devices
Raafat R. Mansour, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, ON (CANADA)
Integrated Passive Device (IPD) technology is a good platform for realizing compact high-Q passive components such as baluns, filters, couplers and transformers. In contrast to other multilayer technologies, that suffer from issues related to control of dimensions, the IPD technology allows the realization of relatively low cost passives with well controlled dimensions. The presentation shows examples of IPD passive devices fabricated in a commercial IPD foundry as well through the use of fabrication process developed in a university clean room. Examples of integrating IPD devices with BST technology to develop tunable IPD devices are also presented.
WSN-7	: Hybrid Acoustic-Wave-Microwave-Resonator Technologies for High-Performance Microwave Filters
Dimitra Psychogiou, Roberto Gomez-Garcia, Dimitrios Peroulis
Dimitra Psychogiou, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder (USA), United States
Recent advances in wireless communication systems call for RF front-ends with multi-standard and multi-functional operability which in turn create the need for RF filters with small physical size, low-loss and flexible transfer function. Acoustic-wave resonators have been the key technology of these systems due to their unique advantages of highly-miniaturized volume and high quality factor (Q). However, their operation is limited by narrow fractional bandwidth (FBW, kt2), ii) small physical size, iii) high-Q (1,000-10,000) iv) arbitrary transfer function synthesis (i.e, bandpass, bandstop, absorptive) and iv) tunable response. Within the course of this workshop, various AWLR-based filtering topologies will be presented in terms of RF design synthesis (coupling matrix approach) and experimental performance with a major focus on bandpass- and bandstop-type responses. Moreover, the RF design of multi-band bandpass filters with various levels of reconfigurability will be reported. Absorptive-bandstop filters with highly selective and tunable equi-ripple stopbands will also be presented.
WSN-8	: Dielectric Spectroscopy and RF and Microwave Passive Microsystems for Biological Application and Discrimination of Cells
Arnaud Pothier
Arnaud Pothier, XLIM Research Institute, University of Limoges, Limoges (FRANCE)
This talk will discuss about the great potential of RF and microwaves frequency micro-systems to achieve dielectric spectroscopy measurement on individual micro-particles and their promising use for biological cell analysis and discrimination. We will review the latest innovations and results achievements based on passive microwave microfluidic sensors that allows nowadays possible accurate dielectric properties characterization of biological sample up to single cells. Achieved electromagnetic signatures measurements may address some promising biological issues especially in cancer research. Hence, we will show that such measurements, without requiring any conventional cell labelling, could be used to discriminate cells and be helpful to early inform on potential cell aggressiveness degree for example.
WSN-9	: Microwave Resonators for Sensing Applications
Mojgan Daneshmand
Mojgan Daneshmand, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB (CANADA)
Microwave resonators have proved their capability as sensing devices in a wide range of applications such as lab on chip, environmental sustainability, and industrial applications, not only for analyses in the solid and liquid phase, but also recently in a gaseous environment. Planar microstrip resonators made from split ring resonators (SRRs) have shown relatively sharper resonances and concomitantly increased sensitivity due to their higher coupling to the surrounding signal lines. These sensors are amenable to miniaturization, automation, mass production, and wireless interconnection due to CMOS compatibility, low cost and a facile fabrication process. Such microwave resonators also offer noninvasive sensing through contact-less probing, which adds to their flexibility of usage and maneuverability for in situ characterization. Since SRR based passive sensors have a low response time and can almost instantly translate changes in the environment of study into measurement quantities, they can be used as real-time sensors. Their unique capability of detecting small complex permittivity in non-contact fashion distinguishes them from other sensor technologies. In this workshop design and analysis of such sensors for gas and chemical sensing, biomedical applications and nanomaterial characterization will be discussed.
WSQ:
RFIC Design Challenges for the IoT at Scale
Nathan Roberts, Haolu Xie
PsiKick, ZTE USA
In 2008 the number of "things" connected to the internet surpassed the number of people living on earth and by 2020 the number of "things" is predicted to reach beyond 50 billion on the way to trillions. The potential for the Internet of Things (IoT) and its ubiquitous computing reality is staggering, but limited in present day by many technical challenges. This workshop will look at two contradictory technical challenges to the IoT vision: wireless communication at scale and low power energy efficient circuit design. The workshop will begin with an overview of present day and upcoming wireless standards used for IoT and will discuss challenges as well as introduce novel approaches for supporting large scale sensor networks. The second part of the workshop will discuss the RFIC system and circuit design landscape for the IoT highlighting the intersection of challenges presented by the previous discussions and the need for low power and energy efficient systems. The workshop will help participants understand the complexity of the challenges presented by the IoT as well as an appreciation for the novelty that will arise from it.
WSQ-1	: An Overview of Wireless Standards for the IoT
(Note: This is not the official abstract, but the workshop coordinators description of what the talk will cover - Nathan) This talk will discuss the different wireless standards, both present and future, that will be major factors in the IoT.
WSQ-2	: Cross-layer Optimized, Ultra-Low Power Wireless Communication Solutions for Energy-Constrained Internet-of-Things
Hun-Seok Kim
Hun-Seok Kim, University of Michgian
This talk presents holistic system analysis, design and optimization approaches to realize ultra-low power (ULP) communication for energy-optimized Internet-of-Things (IoT). A truly energy-optimal IoT wireless connectivity can only be obtained by a cross-layer optimization that requires a full characterization of the complete end-to-end system. Addressing this critical technical challenge in emerging ULP IoT applications, an interdisciplinary research that spans wireless communication, signal processing, and VLSI circuits will be discussed in this talk. Bridging the noticeable gap between communications/signal processing theories and VLSI circuit implementations, this talk introduces holistic solutions obtained by a rigorous theoretical analysis that considers practical implementation issues such as non-idealities in circuits and energy constraints in signal processing. To demonstrate the proposed cross-layer system design approach, an energy-autonomous wireless communication for ultra-small (i.e., millimeter-scale) sensor nodes will be presented. In addition, software-defined radio architectures for multi-standard-compliant IoT communication, WiFi / Bluetooth back-channel communication schemes to interconnect heterogeneous networks, and an ULP 100m-range cm-scale accuracy indoor localization solutions for RFID tags will be discussed.
WSQ-4	: NB-IoT for a Better Connected World
Sam Zhang
Sam Zhang, ZTE
This talk presents the progress of LPWA (Low Power Wide Area) technologies, especially NB-IoT. Why NB-IoT is the best choice of operators will be presented. How to construct a commercial NB-IoT from the existing telecom equipment will be introduced. The choice of frequency band will be introduced. An end-to-end total solution of NB-IoT is presented and different application cases of NB-IoT will be introduced as well.
WSQ-5	: Energy-Efficient Phase-domain Receiver Design for IoT
Yao-Hong Liu
Yao-Hong Liu, IMEC
(Note: This is not the official abstract, but the workshop coordinators description of what the talk will cover - Nathan) A discussion on multi-standard low power radios. These radios are designed to have low power and are capable of communicating over multiple standards.
WSQ-6	: Design of Ultra-low-power Spectrally-efficient Radios
Patrick Mercier
Patrick Mercier, University of California San Diego
Ultra-low-power IoT radios need to balance a difficult trade-off between energy efficiency and spectral efficiency to simultaneously enable long battery life while also enabling reliable communication in bands with severe spectral congestion. However, nearly all prior-art ultra-low-power radios communicate with spectrally inefficient schemes like OOK or FSK, as these modulation schemes facilitate low-complexity, energy-efficient designs. This presentation will explore the design of new transmitter and receiver architectures that enable high-complexity modulations at high efficiency. Importantly, designs will be restricted to CMOS to ensure low-cost radio integration into next-generation IoT devices.
WSQ-7	: RFICs for Energy Autonomous Sensor Nodes
Nathan Roberts
Nathan Roberts, PsiKick
The exponential growth in the semiconductor industry has enabled computers to pervade our everyday lives, and as we move forward many of these computers will have form factors much smaller than a typical laptop or smartphone. Sensor nodes will soon be deployed ubiquitously, capable of capturing information of their surrounding environment. The next step is to connect all these different nodes together into an entire interconnected system. This "Internet of Things" (IoT) vision has incredible potential to change our lives commercially, societally, and personally. The backbone of IoT is the wireless sensor node, many of which will operate under very rigorous energy constraints with small batteries or no batteries at all. It has been shown that in sensor nodes, radio communication is one of the biggest bottlenecks to ultra-low power design. This research explores ways to reduce energy consumption in radios for wireless sensor networks, allowing them to run off harvested energy, while maintaining many qualities that will allow them to function in a real world, multi-user environment. Three different prototypes have been designed demonstrating these techniques. The first is a sensitivity-reduced nanowatt wake-up radio which allows a sensor node to actively listen for packets even when the rest of the node is asleep. CDMA codes and interference rejection reduce the potential for energy-costly false wake-ups. This radio consumes 116nW active power, which is less than the sleep power of a standard sensor node, while achieving a data rate of 12.5kbps and an energy/wake-up of 287.7pJ. The second prototype is a full transceiver for a body-worn EKG sensor node. Due to size and energy limitations, this transceiver is designed to have low instantaneous power and is able to receive 802.15.6 Wireless Body Area Network compliant packets. It uses asymmetric communication including a wake-up receiver based on the previous design, a 4µW UWB transmitter and a communication receiver that consumes 292µW. The communication receiver has 10 physical channels to avoid interference and demodulates coherent packets which is uncommon for low power radios, but dictated by the 802.15.6 standard. The third prototype is a long range transceiver capable of >1km communication range in the 433MHz band and able to interface with an existing commercial radio. A digitally assisted baseband demodulator was designed which enables the ability to perform bit-level as well as packet-level duty cycling which increases the radio's energy efficiency. At 2.5mA transmit and 378µW receive power, the transceiver is more than 20X more efficient than its commercial counterpart.
WSQ-8	: Battery-free Computing and Communication
Shyam Gollakota
Shyam Gollakota, Univ. of Washington
(Note: This is not the official abstract, but the workshop coordinators description of what the talk will cover - Nathan) A discussion on battery-free computing and communication. Topics include backscattering and creating devices that can leverage existing wireless spectrum to communicate for ultra-low power.
WSR:
RFIC Design for Automotive Radar
Franz Dielacher, Gernot Hueber, Marc Tiebout
Infineon Technologies AG,
Recent advances in microwave and millimeter-wave silicon technology have drawn strong interest in the RF community for applications like safety, radar, and communications systems. The goal of this workshop is to provide an in-depth coverage of state of the art and future development trends specifically for FMCW and pulse radars, MIMO and novel CMOS-based architectures and solutions. This includes silicon solutions from 24 GHz to 240 GHz with an emphasis on automotive radar in the 77 to 79 GHz frequency range as highest volume example of commercial millimeter-wave application. Distinguished speakers from industry and academia will highlight system requirements, technology advances, challenges and solutions for implementations on system and silicon level.
WSR-1	: System Architecture Concepts of ADAS Systems for Autonomous Vehicles
Holger Meinel
Holger Meinel, Consultant (Daimler), Germany
Automotive radar and thus ADAS based on radar has been in development over decades – E.g., Mercedes-Benz went into series production with 77 GHz radars for premium cars in 1998, until mid 2015 Infineon had sold 10 million 77 GHz chip-sets worldwide, Hella has delivered 20 million 24 GHz BSD (Blind Spot Detection) units until July 2016, or Mercedes-Benz installed more than 3,5 Mill. radar units in 2015. New cars out of today's production are equipped with a lot of different ADAS units - based on radar, lidar or cameras. Specifically the semiconductor industry there are many challenges that are actively worked on. A system level hot debate is ongoing on the subject of central vs. de-centralized processing between the silicon supplier and integrators. Some OEMs, like Audi or GM, are preferring standardized central processing (zFAS – zentrales Fahrer Assistenz System) while companies like Infineon, NXP, TI or NI, as well as ADI are fostering the de-centralized approach. A topic of similar impact on the IC design is the choice of technology with a strong push to full CMOS solutions, instead of staying with SiGe for the RF. Another relevant subject is the entire area of sensor measurement – in production as well as in the after sales world. Above mentioned topics as well as other system level topics from the car manufacturer's perspective will be addressed is this talk.
WSR-2	: RFIC Concepts for Future Integrated Automotive Radar Sensors
Rainer Stuhlberger
Rainer Stuhlberger, DICE / Infineon Technologies, Austria
In the last few years the automotive safety market gets more and more important especially radar based systems like adaptive cruise control, blind spot detection or emergency brake systems. To be able to handle the higher demand of automotive radar systems and to reduce the system costs at the same time, it is necessary to increase the level of integration, especially on the high frequency (HF) front end side. Traditionally the radar market was dominated by HF bipolar semiconductor based transceivers. For a higher level of integration and to fulfill the high demands of HF performance different technologies like bipolar complementary Metal-oxide-semiconductor (BiCMOS) are necessary. This shift in technology favored a more "digital" centric transceiver partitioning, although the traditional analog HF-architectures (e.g. HF VCO, power amplifier, HF mixers) remained in bipolar technology. It also offers the possibilities of new transmit modulation concepts, and especially in digital front end (DFE) enhanced receiver architectures. Another important aspect for higher integration is the growing demand on monitoring functionality with high coverage to fulfill the requirements for an ISO26262 compliant design. This and more conceptional aspects including an outlook will be part of this presentation during the workshop.
WSR-3	: Phased-Arrays for High-Resolution Automotive Radar Systems
The talk will present the latest development in automotive radar phased-arrays at UCSD with emphasis on 77-81 GHz systems. We have built 32 and 64-element FMCW radar phased-arrays capable of high resolution imaging, and which allow for ADAS functions. The talk will present measured patterns and some recent radar results.
WSR-4	: CMOS Circuit and System Techniques for mmWave MIMO Radar
Vehicular radar is perhaps the most compelling application of silicon-based mmWave circuits and systems. While multiple-antenna systems, such as phased arrays, have been explored for mmWave vehicular radar and enable operation under weak-SNR conditions, the potential of communications-inspired MIMO techniques as applied to radar (or the so-called MIMO radar concept) has yet to be significantly explored. This presentation will initially discuss MIMO radar principles at the system-level, including space-time array processing, multi-beam MIMO radar, waveform trade-offs etc., and will then move on to CMOS implementations in the 22-29GHz frequency range.
WSR-5	: Circuits and Systems of Millimeter-Wave Automotive Radars
Jri Lee
Jri Lee, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
WSR-6	: Transceivers for Automotive Radar Applications
Angelo Scuderi
Angelo Scuderi, STMicroelectronics, Italy
In spite of the very-high frequency of the application, the automotive industry is demanding state-of-the-art performances while ensuring low-cost and reliable solutions at the same time. To comply with this request silicon manufacturer are increasing the level of integration of MMICs embedding more and more functions in a single die. In this talk, we discuss advanced transceiver solutions in SiGe BiCMOS technology for both 24 and 77 GHz automotive radar applications. A general overview of architectures, circuits, and package solutions is described reporting recent products key performance. Finally, an outline of next challenges will be shortly discussed to provide the audience with the trend in this field of applications.
WSR-7	: GHz Radar SoC Integration in 28nm CMOS
Andre Bourdoux
Andre Bourdoux, imec, Belgium
The increased interest in compact and low power automotive radar sensors toward fully autonomous vehicles pushes the research in 79GHz radar. While frequency and phase modulated radars in CMOS and SiGe have been successfully demonstrated, most of them do not integrate the mm-wave parts together with the necessary digital signal processing. This talk will discuss the integration of mm-Wave radar transceiver based on PMCW in advanced CMOS.
WSR-8	: 28nm CMOS mmWave Building Blocks for Wideband Automotive Radar Applications
Nader Rohani, Sergio Pacheco
Nader Rohani, Sergio Pacheco, NXP Semiconductors
WSS:
RFIC Design in CMOS FinFET and FD-SOI
Magnus Wiklund, Gernot Hueber
Qualcomm Atheros, NXP Semiconductors
Both, CMOS FinFET and FD-SOI are the enabling technology that allows nanoscale CMOS beyond 20nm. This technological revolution does not only allow highest integration density for high volume products at low cost. Due to the fundamental change how a transistor is built, there is impact on its characteristics as e.g., Ft, Vt, VDD. Considering this change, traditional and well-known circuits and architectures need to adapted or even be invented for FinFET. This workshop shall give an overview of novel architectures and designs in the context of RF that benefit from latest CMOS FinFET and FD-SOI technology. In several presentations trends, design challenges, and how these are overcome supported by application/circuit examples shall be shown.
WSS-1	: CMOS FD-SOI Technology and Benefits for RF
David Harame, Thomas McKay
David Harame, Global Foundries
WSS-2	: GPS SoC's in FD-SOI
Ken Yamamoto
Ken Yamamoto, Sony Semiconductor Solutions, Atsugi, Japan
WSS-3	: Analog RF mmW Design with FD-SOI
Andreia Cathelin
Andreia Cathelin, ST Microelectronics, France
Fully Depleted Silicon on Insulator (FD-SOI) is one of the alternatives that permits today to follow the Moore's law of CMOS integration for the 28nm node and beyond, while still dealing with fully planar transistors. Numerous presentations have presented over the several last years the benefits of this technology for an energy efficient integration of digital signal processing cores. This talk will focus on the benefits of FD-SOI technology for analog/RF/millimeter-wave and high-speed mixed signal circuits, by taking full advantage of wide voltage range body biasing tuning. For each category of circuits (analog/RF, mmW and high-speed), concrete design examples are given in order to highlight the main design features specific to FD-SOI.
WSS-4	: Ultra-Low-Voltage Wideband Transmitter and LNA in FD-SOI
David Bol, Denis Flandre
David Bol, University Catholique Louvain, Belgium
WSS-5	: RF Synthesizers for Wide Area IoT SoC's in FD-SOI
Stephen Allott, Chi Zhang
Stephen Allott, Chi Zhang, Global Foundries
An All-digital PLL architecture targeting Wide-Area IoT Cat-M and NB-IOT standards enabling power transmitter co-integration exploits back-gate control in FD-SOI. Subsystem architecture through block designs achieve low power, small size and ease of SoC integration. A Digitally controlled 2.8-4 GHz oscillator prototype achieving a step size of 12kHz and 188 dB FoM, provides a basis for realizing this fully integrated 22nm subsystem.
WSS-6	: RF and mm-Wave Design in FD-SOI CMOS Technologies
Sorin P. Voinigescu
Sorin P. Voinigescu, Univ. of Toronto
This presentation will discuss the main features of FD-SOI CMOS technology and how to efficiently use its unique features for RF and mm-wave SoCs. We will overview the impact of the back-gate bias on the measured I-V, transconductance, fT and fMAX characteristics and compare the MAG of FDSOI MOSFETs with those of planar bulk CMOS and SiGe BiCMOS transistors through measurements up to 325 GHz. Finally, we will provide examples of LNA, mixer, switches, and PA circuit topologies and layouts that make efficient use of the back-gate bias to overcome the limitations associated with the low breakdown voltage of sub 28nm CMOS technologies.
WSS-7	: RF Data Converters in 16nm FinFET for Wireless and Wired Infrastructure Applications.
Brendan Farley
Brendan Farley, Xilinx, Dublin, Ireland
RF data converters, currently in 16nm FinFET, for wireless and wired infrastructure applications. As well, this talk will cover low phase noise clock generation and distribution circuits
WSS-8	: Design Challenges of RF/Analog Circuits Operating in a Hostile Digital Environment (Case study of a Low Jitter PLL in 10nm FinFET)
Philip Kwan
Philip Kwan, Oracle
Designing highly sensitive RF/Analog circuits to operate in a hostile environment with extreme level of switching noise pose a huge challenge. This workshop presents a case study of a cascade PLL system for wide-band SerDes applications that support data rates from 1.25Gbps up to 26Gbps. The PLL system were implemented in the latest 10nm FINFET process technology. The various aspect of design issues were examined in this study, such as high flicker noise, switching noise interference, self-heating, low voltage supply, high mod-sense of FINFET varactor, etc.
WSS-9	: Noise Cancelling LNAs in FinFET Technology
Stephen Weinreich
Stephen Weinreich, Stanford University/Global Foundries
For advanced node integration, small, inductor-free LNAs offer cost and SoC co-integration advantages. Exploiting the high self-gain and fT of FinFETs to minimize noise figure and current consumption while accommodating FinFET gate resistance presents a new design challenge. Noise cancelling topology benefits and trade-offs will be explored through a complete 14nm LPP-XL design example, through layout and extracted view results
WSS-10	: RF Circuits in 14nm FinFET
Edwin Thaller, Yorgos Palaskas
Yorgos Palaskas, Intel, Oregon
FinFET process technologies offer lower chip area and lower supply voltages compared to planar CMOS devices. We will present circuit architectures, design challenges and measurements on RF building blocks (receivers, transmitters, synthesizers) designed in a 14nm FinFET technology for 4G (LTE) wireless cellular communication standards.
WSV:
Uncertainty in RF/Microwave Measurement and Modeling
Keefe Bohannan, Peter Aaen
Keysight Technologies, EEsof EDA, Univ. of Surrey
This workshop is focused on new techniques to help engineers understand and overcome uncertainty for the measurement and modeling of their RF and microwave designs. Sources of uncertainty exist in both linear and nonlinear problems, for both the measurement and modeling domains. As such, enhanced approaches for identifying and overcoming these inaccuracies are constantly sought. Specific areas of focus will range across uncertainty in measurement, modeling, and the correlation between the two. The processes that can make measurements appear uncertain, along with the two main methodologies that are currently being used for evaluating the size of a measurement's uncertainty, will be examined in detail. A new real-time uncertainty approach for modern Microwave systems will be shared. Further, a new nonlinear verification device will be presented, with an exploration of the device performance and an improved Figure-of-Merit. Regarding the modeling and simulation domains, eye-opening insights for Electromagnetic simulation errors will be reviewed, as will the compounding of modeling uncertainties and errors that can form in simulations when complex RF Modules are designed. In deeper computational discussions, the measurement and modeling of stationary and cyclostationary stochastic Electromagnetic Fields will be reviewed, and an introduction to fundamental aspects of the mathematical theory of uncertainty quantification in computational physics will be delivered, from an engineering perspective. The two families of uncertainty quantification techniques, namely non-intrusive and intrusive, will be also discussed. Finally, methods for improving model-to-hardware correlation will be examined in a message that unifies the workshop's topics. A panel session during the final hour will allow attendees the opportunity to further engage. Once complete, the audience will certainly depart with a better understanding of uncertainty, how it impacts the performance of their RF & Microwave designs, and how to employ the latest techniques to mitigate it. This workshop spans MTT-1, MTT-8, MTT-11, MTT-15
WSV-1	: Are Measurements Really Uncertain? If so, Why? And, by How Much?
Nick Ridler
Nick Ridler, National Physical Laboratory (NPL), UK
This talk will review what we actually mean when we say a measurement is uncertain. The talk will examine, in detail, some of the processes that can make measurements appear uncertain. The talk will also discuss the two main methodologies that are currently being used for evaluating the size of a measurement's uncertainty. Both these approaches are currently recommended in international guidance documents for evaluating measurement uncertainty (i.e. as published by the International Organization for Standardization, ISO). However, these two approaches are incompatible with each other. The talk will show that the two approaches can produce very different values for the uncertainty of a measurement – in particular, for many measurements that are made at microwave frequencies.
WSV-2	: How to Break EM Software
James C. Rautio
James C. Rautio, Sonnet Software
Usually EM vendors try to say how accurate their software is. But accuracy is not quite what the skilled microwave designer wants to know. Rather, they are interested in what the error is. To get this information, just like the civil engineer who builds a model of a bridge only to stress it to the point that it breaks, we demonstrate how to break EM software. In doing so, we find out that all EM software always gives the wrong answer, without exception. In order to realize success with high probability, we need to establish firm upper bounds on that error and learn how to keep those upper bounds low enough that we have a good chance of success. Probability cannot be left to chance.
WSV-3	: Real-Time Uncertainty on Microwave Data: Why We Need it and How We Can Achieve it.
Andrea Ferrero
Andrea Ferrero, Keysight Technologies
Today microwave techniques have an enormous impact on a huge number of fields from health care to telecommunication. This plethora of applications is achieved with more and more integration of microwave functionalities into general purpose systems thus the design and measurement techniques have been pushed and pushed toward the holy grail of first run IC success. However, the characterization and the measurements are intrinsically affected by an uncertainty, which is a function not only of the system but also of the DUT. For this reason a new Real-Time uncertainty approach able to quantify and present not only the nominal value, but also the associated uncertainty is becoming more and more fundamental for the high level of accuracy required for modern microwave system. The talk will present the recent advance in the field and in particular the methodology and the results achieved with a new real-time uncertainty computation engine.
WSV-4	: Design and Evaluation of a Nonlinear Verification Device for Nonlinear Vector Network Analyzers
Troels S. Nielsen
Troels S. Nielsen, Keysight Technologies
An essential step after any calibration measurement is verification of the calibration accuracy. For the verification of linear S-parameter calibrations, several procedures and best practices have been proposed and developed in the past. Such procedures typically rely on well-known linear calibration standards (short, open, load, etc.). In large-signal Nonlinear Vector Network Analyzer (NVNA) measurements, however, linear calibration standards are insufficient and the development of a stable and accurate nonlinear verification standard has been a hot research topic for several years now. One of the main scientific challenges is to make the performance of the nonlinear verification device insensitive to the surrounding measurement instrument itself (for example, test port mismatches and DC bias variations). This talk will review state-of-the-art nonlinear verification standards and present the design of a new and promising nonlinear verification device. It will be shown how non-ideal instrument characteristics such as test port mismatches and DC bias variations influence the device performance. Load-pull measurement results and an improved Figure-Of-Merit (FOM) are furthermore presented and used to qualitatively compare device performance against state-of-the-art.
WSV-5	: Measurement and Modeling of Stationary and Cyclostationary Stochastic Electromagnetic Fields
Peter Russer
Peter Russer, Institute for Nanoelectronics, Technical University of Munich; Life Fellow of IEEE
The presence of electrical noise is a common source of uncertainty, especially in the case of high bandwidth and low signal amplitude level. The development of high performance nanoelectronic integrated circuits and systems with increased functionality, high bandwidth and low signal power levels requires EMI-aware design. Such a design has to be based on accurate signal- and noise modeling to minimize the uncertainty in the operation of the circuits and systems. In this contribution we present advances in measurement and modeling of noisy electromagnetic fields using two-probe scanning and correlation analysis. Stochastic electromagnetic fields with Gaussian amplitude probability distribution can be fully described by auto- and cross correlation spectra of the field components. In case of digital circuitry clocked by a single clock pulse, the generated EMI is a cyclostationary process where the expectation values of the EMI are periodically time dependent according to the clock frequency and which have to be considered in modeling the EMI. Correlation analysis provides a basis for accurate modeling of noisy electromagnetic fields and, for strategies in computer aided design to reduce EMI. The determination of the near-field correlation spectra of the EMI radiated from devices and circuits by two-point measurements as well as methods to compute from these data the EMI distribution in complex environments are described. The amount of data required for the characterization of stochastic EM near fields can be reduced considerably by principal component analysis. The influence of noise on signal uncertainty is discussed.
WSV-6	: Computational Methods for Uncertainty Quantification
Costas Sarris
Costas Sarris, The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, O
This presentation will address the question of researchers, software developer or user of commercial software packages in microwave engineering: how can I modify the codes I am developing, or how can I utilize the software packages I am using in order to model uncertainties such as fabrication tolerances, tolerances of my input model, or statistical variations in the geometries I simulate? Naturally, it will start with a rigorous, yet intuitive introduction to fundamental aspects of the mathematical theory of uncertainty quantification in computational physics, from an engineering perspective. Then, the two families of uncertainty quantification techniques, namely non-intrusive and intrusive will be discussed. Along with Monte-Carlo, non-intrusive methods based on polynomial chaos and stochastic collocation driven surrogate models will be introduced. Intrusive techniques stemming from polynomial chaos will then be presented. The theoretical introduction of these techniques will be followed by examples, elucidating their application to microwave circuit analysis and design.
WSV-7	: Minding the Gap: Electromagnetic Simulation vs Measurement
Peter Aaen
Peter Aaen, University of Surrey, UK
It is often the case that our electromagnetic simulations and measurement don't agree as well as we would hope. The origins for many of differences can be often traced to approximations or assumptions made during the simulation or measurement process (or both!). Such sources of uncertainty may include: approximations in numerical methods, imperfections in solid models, improper definition of electromagnetic port configurations, flawed material parameters, dynamic or inconsistent measurement environments, and potential drift or missteps in calibration. A detailed understanding of the electromagnetic fields, rather than just the port parameters, can aid in our understanding the origins of the differences. Measurement through electro-optic sampling of the dynamic electromagnetic fields above the circuit and their comparison with simulated fields often yields additional insight. Additionally, with Vector Network Analyzers now supporting uncertainty in addition to S-parameters measurement, we can now also begin to examine the contribution that uncertainty has in addressing the measurement-to-simulation gap…with sometimes surprising results.
WSV-8	: Risk Mitigation in the Modeling of Complex RF & Microwave Modules
Keefe Bohannan
Keefe Bohannan, Keysight Technologies, EEsof EDA
Today's RF & Microwave Modules continue to grow in both functionality and complexity. As such, uncertainties compound with the integration of multiple semiconductor, laminate, and component technologies. The importance and impact of accurate modeling for all building blocks must be considered, underscoring the importance of doing so with an integrated design and analysis platform. Once accurate models are secured and included for devices, packages, interconnects, laminates, components, and even evaluation boards…is that enough? Together we'll investigate some key sources of uncertainty for Module design and explore how to mitigate risk with a comprehensive design, analysis, and verification flow.
WSJ:
High Performance Power Efficient Clock Generation for Internet of Things Applications
Hiva Hedayati, Salvatore Levantino
Applied Micro, Politecnico di Milano
Internet of Things (IoT) applications are becoming a reality that will sense and actuate the world around us. IoT presents semiconductor industries with a market opportunity that may exceed that of all previous processing classes. In many cases battery-operated satellite nodes face a performance and power paradox challenge that is driving the need for a new type of low-power clock generation. The workshop will introduce various timing technologies to enable the lowest power consumption with acceptable accuracy and smaller size. Fully integrated phase-lock loop (PLL) solutions are considered more attractive compared to expensive bulky crystal oscillators. The workshop will also focus on MEMS timing solutions or other leading technologies to enable far more compact high performance designs.
WSJ-1	: Energy-efficient radio links for IoT applications
Jagdish Pandey
Jagdish Pandey, Qualcomm
Energy-efficient radio links are key to viable and widespread deployment of IoTs. Breakthroughs at the level of both circuits and systems, and energy harvesting and storage systems are much needed. In this talk, we will present a smorgasbord of the above mentioned problems and their potential solutions.
WSJ-2	: Scalable Synchronization for Duty-Cycled Radio Networks
Rajeev Dokania, Alyssa Apsel, Xiao Y. Wang
Rajeev Dokania, Intel
The Internet of Things (IoT) places new demands on wireless networks that are difficult to meet with conventional infrastructure, services, and protocols. A massive increase in the number of interconnected devices concurrent to IoT would strain the existing infrastructure, making some form of decentralized device-to-device or peer-to-peer (P2P) communication desirable. In order to manage the power consumption of P2P wireless links, duty-cycled radios have often been proposed due to their ability to shut off the static power consumption at low data rates. While earlier radio nodes for such systems have been proposed based on sleep-wake scheduling, such implementations are still power hungry due to large synchronization uncertainty (~1µs), and do not offer a scalable solution for large networks. A unique pulse-coupled oscillator based synchronization mechanism can be used to facilitate the network synchronization leading to both low power as well as scalable network realization. Pulse-coupled oscillator synchrony is modeled on a natural phenomenon observed in Southeast Asian fireflies, which are thought to use each other's flashes to drive the network to flash in unison. This underlying theory can be used to synchronize radio networks, i.e. control the sleep-wake time of the radios, resulting into ultra-low power design. The talk will delve into the following: 1.)	Duty-cycled Radios, and their effectiveness in low power applications. 2.)	Timing and synchronization requirements for duty-cycled radios. 3.)	Implementation of a scalable synchronization scheme based on naturally occurring phenomenon (fireflies blinking together). 4.)	Design implementation of a UWB impulse based Radio, and consideration of pulse-shaping, FCC compliance, and spectrum usage. 5.)	Interesting applications utilizing time sync methods. 6.)	Implementation and Deployment challenges, and potential solution space. 7.)	Requirements for future large scale and/or cellular compatible IoT systems
WSJ-3	: Efficient Clock Multiplication
Ahmed Elkholy
Ahmed Elkholy, Univeristy of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Meeting the demand for unprecedented connectivity in the era of internet-of-things (IoT) requires extremely energy efficient operation of IoT nodes to extend battery life. Managing the data traffic generated by trillions of such nodes also puts severe energy constraints on the data centers. Clock generators that are essential elements in these systems consume significant power and therefore must be optimized for low power and high performance. On one hand, sensor nodes require kHz clock generators operating within nW-scale power budget, while wireless and wireline transceivers need mW-scale GHz frequency synthesizers. In this talk, we will review the main design challenges of low power clock generators for both integer-N and fractional-N operation. We will then discuss recent design techniques such as injection locked clock multiplication to achieve both low jitter and low power consumption simultaneously.
WSJ-4	: Ultra-Low-Power RC Oscillators
Patrick Mercier, University of California, San Diego
Ultra-low-power sensing devices developed for next-generation IoT applications often communicate via deeply duty-cycled radios to achieve average system-level power consumption in the ~nanowatt regime. Absent the design of nanowatt wake-up radios, such sensing systems must keep synchronized via always-on oscillators that, unless carefully designed, can dominate the power in deeply duty-cycled systems. This presentation explores the design of on-chip integrated RC oscillators operating from Hz to kHz frequencies that, through architectural- and circuit-level innovations, achieve power consumption in the picowatt to nanowatt range. Various solutions to stabilize oscillation frequency from temperature and supply variations will also be covered.
WSJ-5	: Fast Startup Techniques
Christian Enz
Christian Enz, EPFL
The rapid proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT) presents two seemingly disparate challenges of ultra-low energy overhead and high data rates to radio designers. But in reality, these two constraints are closely connected. Indeed, with the increase in the number of nodes in the mesh, the network becomes more and more congested. The only solution to decongest it, is to enable the radio to communicate at a higher data rate so that the system can be effectively duty-cycled. Now, in such a heavily duty-cycled system with high peak data rates, the average energy spent for communication becomes comparable with the energy overhead of the radio. In traditional radios employing synthesizers based on analog or digital PLLs, the energy overhead is dominated in by the energy required to wake-up the radio. The wake-up time is actually mostly determined by the very high Q of the crystal oscillator (XO), which at the same time also sets the phase noise performance. The wake-up time can be shortened without deteriorating the phase noise by building a loop-free frequency synthesizer based on an RF oscillator using a high-Q resonator such as a FBAR. But due to the frequency stability of the FBAR (after compensating for its frequency variations with temperature), tuning the synthesizer over a wide frequency range is extremely difficult. This talk will show different solutions to this problem and techniques for building low latency loop-free synthesizer.
WSO:
Polar, ET, Outphasing, Doherty, Predistortion ... : Which One Survives at mm-Wave Frequencies?
Patrick Reynaert, Ali Afsahi
KU Leuven, Broadcom
Various PA linearization and efficiency enhancement techniques exist. Their applicability in a certain situation depends on various factors such as operating frequency, power level, thermal constraints, operating voltage, dynamics of the signals, bandwidth, … Today, there is a clear shift towards higher frequencies and the importance of communication systems operating above 20 GHz is rising. At these frequencies, the goal is to exploit the high available bandwidths to achieve very high data rates. Within this context, this workshop will have a closer look into mm-wave systems and Silicon technologies, and then explore which PA techniques are most suited for wideband mm-wave systems. It will give the audience an excellent overview of the pros and cons of each technique.
WSO-1	: Comparison of PA Efficiency Enhancement Techniques at RF and mm-Wave Frequencies
Dixian Zhao
Dixian Zhao, South-East University
Millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) technology is widely considered as one of the key technologies that will continue to serve the consumer demand for the increased wireless data capacity. The advanced CMOS can now well operate in mm-Wave bands, permitting the integration of a full transceiver in a low-cost, high-yield technology. However, due to the high operating frequency and large transistor size, the power amplifier (PA) becomes the most challenging building block in a mm-Wave transceiver. On top of that, efficiency enhancement techniques are still a hot topic in the design of RF PAs. In this talk, various PA efficiency enhancement techniques will be briefly reviewed and their implementations at RF frequencies will be compared. At the end, some state-of-the-art mm-Wave efficiency enhanced PA designs will be presented.
WSO-2	: MMW RF Pre-distortion Linearization for Multi-GHz Broadband PA Applications
Tian-Wei Huang
Tian-Wei Huang, National Taiwan Univ.
For next-generation 5G MMW applications, the 10-Gbps high-speed transmitters have stringing linearity and power saving requirements, which cannot be satisfied with the traditional digital pre-distortion (DPD) techniques. In addition, it is also required to work over a wide bandwidth, like from 57 GHz to 66 GHz. Furthermore, the design complexity needs to be taken into consideration. The RF pre-distortion linearization techniques aim to achieve adequate linear output power as PA operating under lower power consumption. Hence, this talk will cover the RF pre-distortion and post-distortion at 28GHz/ 38GHz/45GHz/60GHz bands for the future 5G MMW applications.
WSO-3	: CMOS Doherty PAs at mm-wave Frequencies
Patrick Reynaert, University of Leuven, Belgium
Doherty is a well known technique to extend the high efficiency region on PAs. In recent year, this technique has been implemented in Si and CMOS technologies, where the transmissionlines are replaced by a compact transformer-based power combiner. This allows the combination of Class AB and Class C biased amplifiers, exploits distortion cancellation and increases the output power. Furthermore, transformer-based combining and matching leads to higher efficiency than lumped-element based matching when using low-Q inductors. The result is an outstanding PA topology that gives an excellent trade-off between gain, efficiency, linearity and output power. This talk will give an overview of the different challenges when integrating a Doherty in CMOS at mm-wave frequencies and will discuss some examples in 40nm and 28nm CMOS.
WSO-4	: mm-Wave Switching Power Amplifiers
Hossein Hashemi
Switching power amplifiers enable more efficient and higher power generation as compared with their linear counterparts, while they enable digital polar transmitter architectures. This talk covers various millimeter-wave switching power amplifier architectures where proper combination of single/stacked-transistor and harmonic-shaping passive components are judiciously used to ensure high voltage swing across the transistors (for high power generation) and small overlap between the voltage and current waveforms on each transistor (for high efficiency). Several proof-of-concept prototype switching power amplifiers at around 30 GHz, 45 GHz, and 90 GHz frequency bands realized in SiGe HBT processes will be covered
WSP:
Recent Advances in Microwave Noise: From Device Modeling to Network Design and Characterization
Luciano Boglione
This workshop introduces and thoroughly reviews recent advances made in the broad field of microwave noise, from device modeling to measurement techniques. In the first talk, for the purpose of comparison of different technologies such as HFETs, CMOS, HBTs their noise models are reviewed with emphasis on their common noise properties. Certain limits on the allowable values of transistor noise parameters are established and possible limits of low noise performance upon further scaling of gate or emitter size discussed. Widely published concepts in the treatment of noise in transistors and amplifiers, amongst those "gate induced noise" in FETs, wideband low noise amplifier design, CMOS "noise cancelling" amplifiers, are critically examined. The second talk reviews standard techniques to determine the noise performance of 2 port microwave networks, including a recent procedure extending the noise parameters characterization to N port linear networks. The implications to the measurement of differential amplifiers will be addressed. Then, the talk will focus on a novel, tuner-less procedure particularly suited for the determination of on-wafer microwave transistor noise parameters because solely based on transistor size. The third talk discusses the paradoxes of mixer noise characterization, shows how well established noise characterization methods can be applied to mixers, and presents established and advanced methods for optimizing mixer noise figure in both passive and active mixer circuits. Finally, the last talk addresses the question of how to simulate noise in nonlinear circuits. After an introduction on how nonlinear effects such as upconversion of 1/f noise are simulated in time and frequency domains, special emphasis is placed on modeling GaAs and InP HBTs and GaN HEMTs. The talk will also discuss how nonlinear excitations may impact the properties of flicker and white noise sources from the physical standpoint, and how to reflect this behavior in a large-signal transistor model.
WSP-1	: On the General Noise Properties of Low Noise Microwave Transistors and Amplifiers
Marian Pospieszalski
Marian Pospieszalski, National Radio Astronomy Observatory
GaAs MESFETs (Metal Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors) and their later modifications HFETs (Heterostructure Field Effect Transistors) using artificially structured III-V semiconductors have been exhibiting the lowest noise temperatures of any microwave transistors since their first introduction in 1960's. The current best noise performance is achieved by InP HFETs with gate as short as 35 nm. The rapid advances in technologies of HBTs (Microwave Heterostucture Bipolar Transistors) and CMOS pose a question whether these transistors can in the future offer alternatives to the extremely low noise performance of InP HFET's (including their pseudomorphic and methamorphic versions). In order to compare these very different technologies noise models of unipolar and bipolar transistors are reviewed with emphasis on their common noise properties. Certain limits on the allowable values of transistor noise parameters are established proving that in practice any microwave transistor may be characterized only by three noise parameters, instead of four required for linear two ports in general. Experimental confirmations for III-V FETs, HEMTs, HBTs (in several different technologies including GaN HEMTs), and CMOS devices are shown. The question what determines the minimum noise temperature of either FET or BT and the current state of the art are briefly reviewed both at the room at the cryogenic temperatures. The possible limits of low noise performance upon further scaling of gate or emitter size are discussed. Widely held and widely published concepts in the treatment of noise in transistors and amplifiers, amongst those "gate induced noise" in FETs, wideband amplifier design, CMOS "noise cancelling" amplifiers are critically examined. The discussion is illustrated with experimental data
WSP-2	: Measuring Microwave Noise: from Standard to Advanced Techniques
Luciano Boglione, Naval Research Laboratory
The measurement of the noise figure is at the core of the noise characterization of a linear microwave device and it is key to determine its noise parameters. Modern microwave test equipment have greatly enhanced and simplified the measurement of the noise figure in the past years - less so when considering the determination of the noise parameters. In either case, the measurement system is fundamentally tailored to measure 2 port devices and its adaptation to the characterization of modern differential amplifiers is not as straightforward as in the single ended case. Indeed, there are some clear limitations to the standard techniques in use when multiport networks are tested for noise figure or when transistors' noise parameters are sought at high frequencies above the capabilities provided by commercially available tuners. This talk will start from a review of standard noise characterization procedures and expand to discuss 2 very recent accomplishments published by the author - the first on the determination of the noise parameters to linear N-port networks; the second on the noise parameters determination of on-wafer transistors without the use of tuners.
WSP-3	: Noise in Mixers
Steve Maas
Steve Maas, Nonlinear Technologies, Inc.
Noise in mixers continues to be a confusing subject, not only because there are at least three noise figure definitions for mixers, but also because the relationships between noise figure and noise temperature for two-ports are not valid for mixers. Since two-port noise concepts are not generally valid for mixers, the intuitive concepts we use to optimize noise in two-ports also are often invalid. In this presentation we will discuss the paradoxes of mixer noise characterization, show how well established noise characterization methods can be applied to mixers, and methods for optimizing mixer noise figure in both passive and active mixer circuits. We will also show some examples of modern, low-noise mixer circuits and provide some insight as to how they were optimized.
WSP-4	: Simulating Noise in Nonlinear Circuits
Matthias Rudolph, Fabrizio Bonani
Fabrizio Bonani, Politecnico di Torino
This talk addresses the question how nonlinear excitations impact the properties of flicker and white noise sources. In addition to frequency conversion due to mixing effects in nonlinear circuits, it has been shown that noise sources in semiconductors often depend on the large-signal current. Therefore, their noise spectra differ significantly from the linear case. This talk will briefly introduce the physical background of this effect, discuss approaches to simulate nonlinear noise in time and frequency domain, present a nonlinear noise model of a InGaP/GaAs HBT and conclude with examples of mixer and oscillator simulation and measurement.
WST:
RF-Inspired Silicon Photonic
Univ. of Southern California
Advancements in silicon semiconductor processing enables silicon photonics integrated circuits (PIC) for applications including communication, imaging, sensing, and display. The level of integration and complexity in PICs has lacked those of RF and microwave integrated circuits (IC). This workshop brings leading researchers to cover the latest developments in the design and implementation of complex PICs that are inspired by the systematic design and verification of RFICs.
WST-1	: Silicon-photonics for Energy-efficient Data Communication
Azita Emami
Azita Emami, California Institute of Technology
Silicon photonics is a promising technology for realization of future data communications and interconnect systems. It brings the advantages of optical communication in a highly integrated platform with low manufacturing cost. In this talk we will cover Silicon-Photonic-based high-speed interconnects and their key building blocks. At the transmitter side design of compact modulators with low link-penalty as well as efficient CMOS drivers will be discussed. At the receiver side design approaches for high-sensitivity front-ends optimized for Si-P detectors will be presented. System-level topics such as WDM, 3D integration and packaging will be also covered. In particular effective co-design of electronics and photonics as a holistic approach for reducing the total power consumption and enhancing the performance of the link will be discussed.
WST-2	: Linear Microwave Photonic Techniques for Silicon Photonic Integrated Circuits
James Buckwalter
James Buckwalter, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara
Microwave photonics has been an active, but relatively small, research area over the past thirty years with applications to remote antennas. Conventional microwave photonic systems include optical modulators, lasers, photodiodes, and electronic drivers and result in performance trade-offs between bandwidth, linearity, noise figure, and power consumption. Additionally, size and area have been a significant consideration in the use microwave photonic components. The use of silicon photonic processes could offer lower cost and area and offer the ability to implement photonic integrated circuits but sacrifices some of the performance of spur-free dynamic range for a microwave photonic link. Consequently, this talk will address some techniques to augment microwave photonic links through the co-integration of electronics and photonics.
WST-3	: Electronically Assisted Optical Synthesis, Stabilization, and Phase Noise Reduction
Firooz Aflatouni
Firooz Aflatouni, Univ. of Pennsylvania
In this talk examples of electronic assisted photonics, where analog, RF, and mm-wave circuits and techniques are employed to improve the performance of photonic systems will be discussed. An optical synthesizer is presented which is capable of Hz-level tuning of a semiconductor laser emitting at 200THz over a 5THz range. Also, integrated electronic laser stabilization and phase noise reduction will be presented.
WST-4	: Examples of Hybrid Electronics and Photonics ICs: Optical Phased Arrays, Equalization, and RF Power Generation
Ali Hajimiri
Ali Hajimiri, California Institute of Technology
In this talk, we will investigate new devices emerging from a hybrid approach to the design of electronics and photonics integrated circuits. We will review several hybrid design design examples, such as optical phased arrays, hybrid equalizers, and optical mm-wave signal generation. Showing how the synergy among these technologies can results in more than some their parts.
WST-5	: Monolithic Optical Phased Arrays
Hossein Hashemi, Univ. of Southern California, United States
Radio frequency phased arrays, primarily developed during the WWII for radar applications in discrete modular realizations, have entered consumer commercial applications such as automotive radars and high-speed wireless communications in monolithic realizations. Optical phased arrays enable several important applications such as lidar, imaging, display, and holography. This talk covers monolithic optical phased arrays realized in commercial SOI RF CMOS technology. The optical phased array architectures leverage lessons learned in the RF phased arrays and benefit tight integration of photonic and electronic functions.
WME:
Front End Module (FEM) for 5G
Roberto Quaglia, Vittorio Camarchia, Anh-Vu Pham
University of Cardiff, Politecnico di Torino, Univ. of California, Davis
In this workshop, speakers from leading industries and universities will present state-of-the-art results in the framework of 5th mobile generation (5G) front-end modules (FEMs). Several aspects regarding FEMs will be covered, from the motivations that drive their development to advanced testing. In the first talks, the main trends and challenges for FEMs will be shown from the stand-point of a regulatory body and commercial aspects will be highlighted. Results regarding the design of energy efficient FEMs will be presented considering both compound and silicon technologies, focusing on the pros- and cons- deriving from integration. Integrated solutions for millimetre-wave integrated circuits will be described, carefully evaluating the consequences of increasing centre frequency and bandwidth. Some aspects regarding packaging technologies will be also presented. The important aspect of RX/TX isolation will be also faced, with a description of integrated circulator/isolator solutions based on linear periodic time-varying circuits.
WME-1	: The Trends and Challenges of Microwave/Millimeter-wave in Future 5G Wireless Communication Networks
Maurizio Pagani
Maurizio Pagani, Hawei Technologies Italia
This talk will describe what is expected from millimeter wave front-ends in the development of the future 5G networks. An overview of the most attractive frequency bands will be given, describing the related pros and cons. The current limitations and the foreseen evolution of electronics will be discussed.
WME-2	: High Efficiency Power Amplifiers and Front-end Module Circuits for 5G Wireless Communications
Anh-Vu Pham
Anh-Vu Pham, UC-Davis
We present several design techniques to achieve high efficiency and linear power amplifiers in the millimeter-wave frequencies. We will first review the performance of power amplifiers in different semiconductor process technologies at millimeter-wave frequencies. We will discuss the design, implementation and performance of stacked-FET power amplifiers, Doherty power amplifiers and linearization techniques to achieve high efficiency and linearity in millimeter-wave frequencies. The presented power amplifiers have applications in the 5G wireless communications.
WME-3	: Advances in High Performance Cost Effective MMIC and SMD from V to D-band
Marcus Gavel
Marcus Gavel, Gotmic AB
The mm-wave frequency range is a key enabler for 5G wireless networks. Both for the backhaul network and access network with consumer products such as smartphones, tablets, cars, and IOTs. The 5G infrastructure is reaching out for higher frequencies having more available bandwidth. Simultaneously; price, handling and performance are important driving factors to meet the market requirements. The challenges for miniaturizing the MMICs and high frequency package solution reaching D-band are addressed and solutions to meet those demands are presented. Furthermore we will address the market and future outlook for the 5G mm-wave frequency bands.
WME-4	: RF SOI Technology for PA/FEM Integration
Alexandre Giry
Alexandre Giry, CEA - LETI
This presentation deals with the challenges and possible solution for the integration, in SOI technology, of the power amplifier with the rest of the front-end.
WME-5	: Breaking Lorentz Reciprocity: Non-reciprocal Integrated Front-end Circulators and Isolators Based on Linear Periodic Time-varying (LPTV) Circuits
The removal of circulators and isolators from high frequency front-ends has been discussed since ancient times, due to the high cost, size and weight of these bulk components that cannot be integrated. Unfortunately, the drawbacks from the removal of these crucial components are often too important, and the circulators and isolators stand still in the front-ends. This talk will show how, instead of removing them, circulators and isolators can be integrated and become convenient thanks to novel design techniques and advanced integration technology.
WMH:
Non-Doherty Load-Modulated PAs
Steve Cripps, Zoya Popovic
Cardiff University,
This workshop focuses on approaches to efficient power amplifier (PA) design for applications where the signal has a high peak to average power ratio (PAPR). While the Doherty amplifier has been predominant in cell-phone base stations, other approaches where the transistors are load-modulated have recently gained attention but are not always well understood. These include outphasing (Chireix) PAs, architectures with varactor diodes in the PA output, broadband load modulation in actively-controlled balanced amplifiers, as well as both digital and analog load modulation combined with supply modulation. The selected speakers are well-established internationally in the field of power amplifiers and transmitters. The speaker list includes researchers from industry, academia and private consultants. Several of the speakers are pioneers in the field of microwave power amplifiers, and authors of highly cited papers and a well-respected textbook. The goal of the workshop is to provide high-level instruction in various types of PAs with load modulation, other than the well-known Doherty architecture, and beyond a basic introduction and glossary.
WMH-1	: Modern Outphasing: Potential and Pitfalls
Taylor Barton
Taylor Barton, University of Colorado, Boulder
Outphasing architectures generate load modulation through phase control of multiple nonlinear PAs, offering the potential for linear amplification with high efficiency over a wide range of output powers. The advantage of this approach is in the efficiency of the branch PAs, which can be highly saturated. Historically, however, outphasing has several drawbacks that have limited its success. After an overview of historical outphasing techniques, this talk will present recent advances in outphasing PAs, including ones that reduce complexity and improve back-off efficiency in practical implementations. Limitations and challenges of designing outphasing PAs will also be discussed.
WMH-2	: Modulation and Filtering Techniques for Pulsed Load Modulated (PLM) PAs
Ethan Wang
Ethan Wang, UCLA
Pulsed load modulated (PLM) PAs can achieve high power efficiency through its duty-cycle dependent load behavior. Under certain Bitstream modulations, the amplifier output can be considered as a discretized and amplified version of the original RF signal. Filtering is thus required to eliminate the quantization noise and to restore the original RF signal. In this talk, we will introduce the different modulation techniques that may be applied to PLM PAs and filtering techniques including both passive and active filtering that work with the PAs to suppress the quantization noise without sacrificing the overall system efficiency.
WMH-3	: The Load Modulated Balanced Amplifier (LMBA)
Daniel Shepphard, Steve Cripps
Daniel Shepphard, Cardiff University
A novel power amplifier architecture, the "Load Modulated Balanced Power Amplifier" ("LMBA"), is presented. The LMBA is able to modulate the impedance seen by a pair of RF power transistors in a quadrature balanced configuration, by varying the amplitude and phase of an external control signal. This enables power and efficiency to be optimized dynamically at specific power backoff levels and frequencies. Unlike the Doherty PA, the load seen by the active devices can be modulated upwards or downwards, both resistively and reactively, without any loss of power combination efficacy. The LMBA is presented as a potentially disruptive technique which enables any specific amplifier characteristic to be controlled dynamically over wide signal amplitude and frequency ranges. Implemented hardware examples will be shown, demonstrating LMBA action over octave bandwidths in S-band and X-band.
WMH-4	: A novel Load Modulated Envelope Tracking PA technique
Morten Olavsbraaten
Morten Olavsbraaten, Norwegian Univ. of Science and Technology
This paper shows the preliminary results of combining load modulation and envelope tracking, to get a large RF bandwidth with good efficiency in backoff. This Load Modulated Envelope Tracking (OLMET) combination method, is a Doherty like topology, without the bandwidth limiting quarter wave long lines. The technique is , in itself , independent of RF bandwidth. The only RF bandwidth limiting parts in this technique are the RF bandwidth of the amplifiers itself and a power splitter. Preliminary simulation results for a GaN MMIC process, show drain efficiency above 40% at 12dB backoff and a bandwidth of 1.2Ghz centred around 2.2Ghz.
WMH-5	: Efficient and Linear RF Power Amplification using Varactor-based Dynamic Load Modulation
Christian Fager, Chalmers University
A plethora of power amplifier architectures have been proposed to address the need for increased back-off efficency and linearity in wireless communication applications. Among them, varactor based dynamic load modulation (DLM) is one of the least investigated. This talk will first introduce the DLM concept. A variety of theoretical and experimental results will then be given to demonstrate the potential of DLM for both wideband, multi-band, and high power applications. We will also show how DLM in combination with dedicated digital pre-distortion linearization techniques results in a very competitive power amplifier architecture for both present and emerging wireless systems.
WMH-6	: Unfazing the Outphasing RFPA Circuit
Steve Cripps
Steve Cripps, Cardiff University
Most existing analyses of the Chrieix outphasing circuit assume that the active devices behave as voltage sources. Once this rusty creaking door is forced open, the analysis poses few problems and shows how the combined output power can be controlled over a useful range and with enhanced efficiency by varying the differential phase of the two input signals. But in almost all other applications and PA analyses transistors are not usually considered to behave as voltage sources, and as such it is surprising that after 80 years the outphasing configuration still sits on such shaky foundations. This paper analyses the Chireix outphasing circuit using a novel analytical model for the transistor I-V knee characteristics, rather than the approximation of a simple voltage source. It also incorporates input drive level variation, usually a critical independent variable in any other PA analysis, but curiously underrated by the RFPA outphasing community. The result is a more comprehensive understanding of how the outphasing circuit works, and various new design pointers.
WMH-7	: Measurements of Load Modulation in Outphasing PAs with Supply Modulation
Zoya Popovic, Michael Litchfield
Zoya Popovic, University of Colorado, Boulder
This talk presents measurements of internal load modulation occurring in outphasing amplifiers with and without supply modulation. X-band GaN MMIC power amplifiers with 70% power-added efficiency and 2.7 W output power at 10.1 GHz are configured in hybrid outphasing circuits with several combiners that include bi-directional couplers, enabling calibrated measurements of internal load modulation. It is experimentally demonstrated that the load modulation critically depends on the power balance of the two internal MMIC PAs. Despite the additional loss in the combiner, peak total efficiencies greater than 47% are achieved by full outphasing PAs with more than 3.7 W of output power. A comparison between several outphasing configurations quantifies the improvement in efficiency for both isolated and non-isolated outphasing PAs with supply modulation.
WML:
RF to/from Bits: Challenges in High Frequency Mixed Signal Measurements and Design
Jon Martens, Nuno Carvalho
Anritsu, IT-Universidade de Aveiro
With higher levels of integration and ever higher bandwidth requirements in communications, telemetry and control systems, mixed signal measurements and behaviors in these systems involving data converters are increasingly important. Receiver chains must manage wide bandwidths and not introduce added distortions through data conversion, predistorters must correctly digitize and process transmitter behaviors at sufficient speed with a minimum of added transfer errors, and digital transmitters must control detailed spectral purity requirements. Characterization of systems like these must handle a mixed-domain calibration space and detail a complicated multivariate problem where converter clocks can play an even greater role than do front end local oscillators. This workshop will cover this category from a number of viewpoints to highlight some approaches to distortion management/characterization, managing details of converter behavior and better understanding performance of these complex systems.
WML-1	: Challenges in Characterization of Mixed Signal Systems
Jon Martens
Jon Martens, Anritsu
With more integrated transmit and receive systems becoming increasingly prevalent, characterization tasks have received added attention. While calibration can be an issue, particularly with any over-the-air aspect of those measurements, linearity analysis can also be more involved. On the transmit side, added spectral content from clocking imperfections (usually appearing as spurs) or unintended coupling (both in an analog sense and in a digital-spectrum-intruding-on-analog-space meaning) can affect a spectrum-based linearity measurement and may require deconvolution. On the receive side, clocking imperfections can have a different effect on linearity measurements including noise floor elevations and low-order bit errors. This talk will look at some of the calibrations and interpretation nuances that can affect this class of measurements.
WML-2	: How Not to Mess-up the Bits when Converting them to and from Microwave Signals
Justin Magers
Justin Magers, National Instruments
With digitally modulated radio signals increasing in carrier frequency and instantaneous bandwidth, the dynamic range demands of the signal chain in digital radios and test and measurement equipment is increasing. In order to transmit and receive signals with both small and large power levels, signal chains must utilize variable gain in order to maintain adequate dynamic range, usually measured by error vector magnitude (EVM). This workshop presentation will focus on tackling the tough problem of optimizing signal chains for digitally modulated signals with an emphasis on variable gain signal chains. In particular, the relationship between EVM and typical RF impairments such as noise figure, intermodulation distortion, phase noise, and linear amplitude/phase distortion will be discussed. Additionally, a methodology for optimizing variable gain signal chains will be shown. Finally, various graphical visualization methods will be developed to help signal chain engineers locate dynamic range limiting areas within the signal chain.
WML-3	: Mixed-Signal Characterization Approaches for 5G Software Defined Radio Design
Nuno Carvalho
Nuno Carvalho, IT-Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal
5G SDR approaches have an impact on nowadays microwave characterization technologies, the change in paradigm from analog to digital has a strong impact in the way nonlinear microwave characterization is seen. Behavioural characterization and modelling becomes a fundamental tool in complex systems, where the combination of analog and digital. In this talk a general overview of these technologies is presented, focusing on Software Defined Radio front-end characterization. Its characterization approaches will be presented as an integrated view on how to model and how to characterize those components from a behavioural point of view. Some examples on Analog to Digital Converters (ADC's) and Digital to Analog Converters (DCA's) as Digital Pre-distortion (DPD) feedback paths will be presented.
WML-4	: System-level Design Considerations for Digital Predistortion of Wireless Base Station Transmitters
John Wood, Obsidian Microwave
The use of digital predistortion (DPD) techniques for the linearization base station transmitter (BTS) power amplifiers is now commonplace in cellular wireless infrastructure. Digital predistortion is a classic example an adaptive control system, in which we are controlling the output of the plant – the power amplifier – using algorithms implemented in the digital domain, often using an FPGA or custom digital IC. It is a mixed-domain control system: the signal we wish to control is in an RF signal, and the controller is in digital hardware. Conversion of the RF signal to a digital signal, and back again, must be achieved without introducing further distortions and limitations. This places strict requirements on the data converters, frequency translation components, filters, and amplifiers that comprise the hardware aspect of the DPD system. Such considerations include the analog nonlinearity, IQ imbalance, and frequency response, and digital impairments such as jitter, thermal noise, and dynamic range.
WML-5	: Modeling RF Complex Circuits for Accurate System Simulation
Damien Gapillout, Christophe Mazière
Damien Gapillout, AMCAD Engineering
High power amplifiers (PA), LNA and MIXERS have an important impact on RF front-ends behavior. Then, for designing a transceiver system, accurate behavioral models are necessary to take into account signal nonlinear distortion, bilaterality and memory effects. This paper presents an experimental measurement methodology and setup that allow a reliable identification of the Two-Path Memory Nonlinear Integral Model which is the basis of the description of each block of RF Front-ends. We discuss here the formulation of each models and the precision which can be obtained with a global macro-model (autonomous) which can be loaded in classical CAO tools (AWR, Ptolemy, Simulink ...). The study case presented here is a down-converter 3 GHz to 1.28 GHz the analysis bandwidth is 200 MHz.
SMA:
Coupling-Matrix-Based Design of RF/Microwave Filters
Dimitrios Peroulis, Roberto Gomez-Garcia, Dimitra Psychogiou
Purdue Univ., Univ. of Alcala, Univ. of Colorado
This short course introduces students to the science and art of RF/microwave filter design. Students taking this course should be familiar with fundamental RF concepts, such as impedance matching, transmission line theory, and scattering parameters. Previous exposure to filter design is helpful but not required. The course starts by introducing students to the importance of RF filters in current high-frequency applications followed by the fundamentals of filter design. It subsequently introduces students to the coupling-matrix-based design theory followed by many practical synthesis examples. Without sacrificing mathematical rigor, the course emphasizes the practical step-by-step design process. Relevant MatlabTM scripts will be also provided to students as a guideline so they can perform their own designs. Students will be able to design complex transfer-function filters (e.g., multi-band, filter cascades) that go beyond traditional textbook-style filter examples. In addition, several planar and three dimensional filter developments will be presented as supporting practical examples. The course will conclude by providing examples of the most successful reconfigurable filter architectures that exploit the aforementioned techniques to realize adaptive-transfer-function filters. Students completing this course will be able to understand basic and advanced filter concepts as well as comprehend state-of-the-art designs published in the recent technical literature.
SMB:
Fundamentals of Microwave Imaging
Abbas Omar
In this short course the fundamentals of microwave imaging are presented. We will begin with the simple equations describing transmission-line wave propagation that are known to almost all electrical engineers. Based on the relations between intrinsic impedance, local reflection coefficient and local input impedance, and propagation speed, a nonlinear Riccati-type differential equation is derived, which represents the fundamental equation of one-dimensional imaging. Exact and different approximations of this equation in both "direct" and "inverse" cases are presented and discussed. The discussions show in a very clear, intuitive, and systematic way which conceptual and practical problems characterize the imaging process. These include the resolution degradation due to bandwidth limitations, the creation of what is called "artifacts" in imaging due to improper image reconstructions, as well as noise impact on imaging quality. The course moves then smoothly to two- and three-dimensional imaging schemes explaining the concept of "temporal" and "spatial" focusing and the role of antenna arrays for achieving the latter. The tradeoff between wave penetrability (usually associated with low frequencies) and resolution needs (dictating bandwidth requirements) is discussed. A number of imaging modalities and their technical, medical, environmental, and industrial applications are finally presented.
SMC:
SOI, From Basics to Applications
Mostafa Emam
Incize
The Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology is gaining more grounds in the domains of low power and RF applications. Nearly 100% of RF antenna switches in wireless system Front-End Modules (FEM) are based on SOI. A FEM entirely built on SOI can be implemented in the observable future as both academia and industry are working in this direction. In addition, FDSOI opens new horizons for designers by offering more flexibility for design and optimisation of low power applications. This short course will be of interest for engineers and graduate students willing to prepare themselves for the future of low power and RF applications.
WMA:
Advanced Microwave Technologies for Internet of Space Applications
Holger Maune, Robert Weigel
TU Darmstadt, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg
The IEEE Microwave Theory & Techniques Society started an Initiative for the Internet of Space (https://www.mtt.org/internet-space-initiative-ios) last year. Also the German VDE published a white paper on the future of satellite communication systems. This workshop will address the new trends set by both initiatives. It is divided mainly into two parts. The first part will give an overview of future satellite systems and the upcoming requirements for microwave engineering. The second part will focus on technologies especially for tunable/reconfigurable transceivers and antennas.
WMA-1	: IEEE Internet of Space Initiative
Robert Weigel
Robert Weigel, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg
There has been a recent renaissance of interest and investment in deploying high-data-rate communications networks based on constellations of 1000's of Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) satellites, as well as suborbital communications platforms such as High-Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) aircraft, persistent UAVs, airships, etc. These networks will have global impact on humanity by delivering ubiquitous high-bandwidth communications to nearly 60% of the world's population that lives in underserved and fast-growing, but hard-to wire, regions of the world, maintaining such communications during natural or manmade disasters, with modest investments in ground infrastructure, and serving as a critical backbone for the Internet of Things (IoT). In the more distant future, these space-based networks may extend to serve manned and unmanned space missions throughout the solar system. We refer to these emerging networks as the Internet of Space (IoS). For example, Google and SpaceX recently announced a $B investment in a plan to deliver hundreds or thousands of micro satellites into LEO around the globe to serve Internet to rural and developing areas of the world. SpaceX's ultimate goal is building a bridge to a future manned colony on Mars. Similarly, a new venture, OneWeb, is proposing a 648 satellite LEO constellation, with significant investments from Virgin Group and Qualcomm. Facebook and Google already have begun laying plans to serve under-wired markets with drone-based and balloon-based data networks. The European Space Agency and AirBus Defense & Space are planning a "Space Data Highway" that features EO satellites at GEO, and a set of LEO satellites to provide a hybrid optical / RF network for Emergency Response, Open Ocean Surveillance, UAS communication, Weather Forecasting and Wide-Area Monitoring on the impacts of human activities on state of natural resources (deforestation, loss of biodiversity, water/air pollution). Facebook is leading "Internet.org" to bring together technology leaders, nonprofits and local communities to connect the two thirds of the world that doesn't have internet access. The Space-based networks represent the final frontier in the competition for connectivity. Back in the 1990's, there were a number of large space-based satellite network ventures, such as Iridium, GlobalStar, Teledesic, etc. but only limited number of low-data rate (kbps) satellites were ultimately deployed. However, since that time, satellite technology has greatly advanced, bringing the cost of deployment down significantly. "Toaster-sized" micro-satellites can be launched dozens at a time to low earth orbits (LEO), reducing launch costs, while delivering performance comparable to larger, older satellites at higher orbits. Also, operation at LEO, satellites will also significantly reduce network latencies, while introducing challenging tracking, synchronization and handoff issues. Advances in microwave/mm-wave phased array technology and advanced CMOS over the last several years will also be key enablers. The new networks should not be expected to replace terrestrial networks, but will integrate seamlessly with these networks to provide ubiquitous global connectivity. Together with several other IEEE Societies the MTT-Society has launched an IEEE Internet of Space Future Directions Initiative in order to promote the future of satellite communication and sensing worldwide.
WMA-2	: New Concepts for Future Satellite Communications
Volker Ziegler
Volker Ziegler, Airbus Group
The presentation will review concepts for future satellite communication systems including LEO, MEO and GEO. Based on these future system architectures, the potential requirements for next generation microwave technologies will be derived.
WMA-3	: Agile Filter and Transponder Concepts for Small Satellite Transponders
Siegbert Martin
Siegbert Martin, Tesat Spacecom
Given the experience of space microwave equipment and commercial RF transceivers, combined with upcoming technology evolutions, transponder concepts are discussed and evaluated. The approach of total integration along signal path from input to power amplifier output enhances signal integrity and robustness in manufacturing. Due to full flexibility versus frequency conversion, a high reusability of this concept is supporting market expectation of individual frequency setting as well. Application of LTCC as core technology for 3 D integration of RF functions opens up the capability to merge amplifier, multiplier, mixer and bias circuit in a single module. The operating RF bandwidth selection at the in- and output is supported by tunable filters. Several concepts with tuning in orbit or on ground will be presented, based on different upcoming technologies. Tuning filters with Liquid Crystal to avoid moving parts or solutions featuring innovative coupling resonators to adjust filter bandwidth or manifold coupling and their contribution for small satellites are discussed and valued. Finally the presentation is summarizing different technology and design approaches for RF payloads, explaining their potential for space application and how they are fitting in low-cost transceivers for small satellite transponders.
WMA-4	: Satellite Payload and User Terminal Technologies for Advanced Mobility Applications
Matthias A Hein, Giovanni Del Galdo, Jens Müller
Matthias A Hein, TU Ilmenau
Satellite technologies play an increasingly important role in a connected world, especially for advanced mobility applications. High data rate, abundant coverage, and ubiquitous positioning information are of major concern for many relevant use cases. Significant progress has been achieved in technologies both for the space segment and the ground segment, as well as for advanced testing methodologies that account for the intimate fusion of air interfaces and propagation channel. This contribution aims at providing a comprehensive and clear description of the potential of satellite payload and user terminal technologies for advanced mobility applications, accoun¬ting for the latest developments under the responsibility of the authors. The achievements include versatile electronically reconfigurable, space-qualified and tested, payload modules for the space segment in satellite communications. High-gain and low-profile tracking antennas and tracking mechanisms for heterogeneous satcom-on-the-move links represent major activities in the ground segment. The presentation further highlights the innovative testing technologies available in Ilmenau, covering a free-space testbed as well as virtual electromagnetic environments, for powerful over-the-air testing of mobile communication links. In a third part, approaches towards interference-resistant satellite navigation with compact antenna arrays for safety-critical applications will be described. This satellite-based technology has recently gained utmost relevance for automated driving.
WMA-5	: Novel Antenna Developments for High Data Rate Small Satellite Communications Networks
Richard Hodges, Nacer Chahat, Emmanuel Decrossas
Richard Hodges, Jet Propulsion Lab
The recent growth of low cost small satellite technology has fueled interest in in high data rate communications networks based on constellations of small satellites in Low Earth Orbit and opened new possibilities for interplanetary communications networks. Small satellites and CubeSats present a unique antenna design challenge due to the inherent stowage limitations, mass and environmental requirements. This workshop will present an overview of recent antenna technology developed to support the unique requirements of small satellites. Deployable high gain antennas and low gain proximity antenna technology will be highlighted. The workshop will also discuss future trends in antenna development for small satellite communications antennas.
WMA-6	: Advanced Silicon-Based Phased-Arrays for SATCOM
Gabriel M. Rebeiz
Gabriel M. Rebeiz, UCSD
The talk will present our latest work on SATCOM phased arrays using silicon technologies. It is seen that well designed chips can greatly lower the cost of SATCOM phased arrays, and can switch the beam very quickly (in microseconds). The use of these chips in actual implementations will be shown at Ku and Ka-band.
WMA-7	: Programmable RF Filters Based on Hybrid Acoustic-Wave Lumped-Element Resonators
Dimitrios Peroulis
Dimitrios Peroulis, Purdue Univ.
The internet of space technology has a lot to gain from programmable RF platforms. Technologies that result in fully reconfigurable transfer functions based on low-power mobile form-factor platforms are particularly attractive for satellite radios. It is for this reason that acoustic-wave resonators (BAW and SAW) need to be seriously considered for this field. However, conventional BAW and SAW architectures present few opportunities for achieving tunable responses. It is the purpose of this talk to discuss novel hybrid acoustic-wave lumped-element-resonator-based (AWLR) architectures that enable highly-reconfigurable operation. Such AWLR architectures bring the best of both worlds: a) the high quality factor of SAW/BAW resonators, and b) the wide tunability of lumped elements. Both bandpass and bandstop architectures for interference mitigation applications will be reviewed. Future opportunities for on-chip intrinsically-switchable filters will also be reviewed.
WMA-8	: Frequency Agile Circuits Based on Ferroelectric and MEMS Technology
Fabio Coccetti, Paola Farinelli, Luca Pelliccia, Roberto Sorrentino
Fabio Coccetti, RF Microtech
Emerging and future wireless solutions strongly rely on circuit agility to enhance equipment performance by improving form/weight factor and miniaturization. The introduction of reconfigurable and/or tunable circuits and antennas are considered as game changers in next generation of wireless communications (e.g. 5G) and detection (e.g. radar) systems, and more generically speaking for the internet of space. Endowed with high tunability and high quality factor, frequency agile components based in ferroelectric and MEMS technologies have been studied and optimized for a variety of applications going from filtering to phase shifting and from few GHz up to the mm-wave band. A perspective on recent achievements in this area will be presented.
WMA-9	: Continuously Tunable Liquid Crystal Devices for Space Applications
Matthias Jost, Rolf Jakoby, Holger Maune
Matthias Jost, TU Darmstadt
Since the internet of space initiative requires a large number of satellites which need to be launched, a new technology is indispensable. On one hand, this technology needs to be tunable to provide a high flexibility in application but on the other hand it has to avoid mechanically moving components to reduce the risk of wear-out failures to a minimum. Furthermore, it should be low cost and adaptable to the higher frequency range, which might be an alternative for future satellite communication, due to the large available bandwidths. These challenges can be met by using electrically tunable systems such as 2D-steerable phased array antennas based on liquid crystals (LCs). Due to their unique property of exhibiting local anisotropy and their low dielectric loss in the higher microwave and millimeter wave range, it is a very promising material for the low-cost realization of continuously tunable RF devices for satellite communication. The technology has been improved in our research group over the past thirteen years, amongst others in projects funded by the German aerospace agency, for many different devices such as LC-filled hollow waveguide phase shifters for horn antenna arrays, microstrip line phase shifters integrated in planar phased array antennas or LTCC integrated antenna arrays. This work will therefore present the latest improvements of the LC technology for satellite applications.
WMA-10	: Multiband, Tunable and Multifunctional Microwave Components Based on Metamaterial Concepts
Ferran Martin, Jordi Bonache, Javier Mata-Contreras
Ferran Martin, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
In this presentation, a review of different approaches for the implementation of microwave components exhibiting multiband functionality, tuning and/or multifunctionality is addressed. All these approaches share the use of artificial transmission lines inspired by metamaterials. Examples of applications including passive components (filters, diplexers, splitters, couplers) and active devices (e.g. distributed amplifiers and mixers) are reported.
WMC:
Emerging Applications of THz
Vesna Radisic, J.-C. Chiao
Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, Univ. of Texas at Arlington
This workshop will focus on the emerging applications of THz technologies, which has recently exceeded its expectations in terms of achievements, demonstrations and applications. The aspect of what can and cannot be done in this frequency range will be discussed. This workshop will also include RF / microwave applications as well as emerging application in biomedical and environmental fields. We will cover THz imaging and sensing systems and its applications, radiometers for radio astronomy, and measurements techniques. Unexpected applications of THz include single biological cell detection using THz, surface tissue edema mapping using THz imaging, and THz sources and detectors for gas spectroscopy.
WMC-1	: Impedance Spectroscopy in Biofluids at mm-wave Frequencies
James Booth
James Booth, NIST
Impedance spectroscopy can yield important information regarding the electromagnetic response of biomolecules, cells, and other important fluidic systems. However, few impedance spectroscopy measurements are applied above the water relaxation frequency (approx. 18 GHz at 25C). We describe the design, verification and application of swept-frequency impedance spectroscopy experiments using microfluidic structures and wafer-probe measurements at frequencies above 20 GHz. Current broadband swept-frequency measurements are demonstrated over the frequency range 100 kHz - 110 GHz, while higher frequencies can be obtained only via band-limited approaches. Such measurements open up mm-wave frequencies for impedance spectroscopy investigations of biofluids.
WMC-2	: Gas Spectroscopy System for Breath Analysis at mm-wave/THz using Circuits in SiGe BiCMOS
Klaus Schmalz
Klaus Schmalz, IHP, Germany
The implementation of integrated mm-wave radiation sources and detectors offer a path toward a compact and low cost sensor for gas spectroscopy to meet the objective of a high-sensitivity, high-specificity breath sensor. The presentation reviews our recent work on transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) circuits in SiGe BiCMOS technology for gas spectroscopy in the frequency ranges around 245 GHz and 500 GHz. The local oscillators of the TX and the RX are controlled by two external PLLs. The performance of our sensor system is demonstrated by using a gas absorption cell with dielectric lenses between the TX- and RX-modules, and measuring the high-resolution absorption spectrum of gaseous methanol (CH3OH) and acetonitrile (CH3CN).
WMC-3	: In situ Surface Tissue Water Content Mapping using THz Imaging for the Early Detection of Disease and Tissue Viability
Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor, Univ. of California, Los Angeles
Recent practical advancements in THz source, detector, and system technology have enabled researchers to explore a myriad of medical applications in both research laboratory and clinical settings. While much progress has been made in clinically relevant investigations, clinical translation has been limited. In vivo, physiologic tissue does not display specific THz frequency spectral signatures and features identified in the excised tissue are often difficult to observe in vivo due to the large aqueous background present in all tissues. Model based analysis has also been limited as THz frequency electromagnetic models are highly sensitive to tissue morphology. In practice, physiologic variation is so broad that it is nearly impossible to apply most models a priori. These issues are all compounded by biophotonic systems (optical imaging designs based on UV/VIS/IR spectra) that often offer similar or superior performance for a fraction of the cost and complexity. In light of these issues our group has chosen to focus on three applications which we believe are ideal for THz diagnostic imaging technology. The first two are acute burn wound severity assessment and surgical flap viability assessment. In both cases, the immediate physiologic response is characterized by massive changes in tissue water content (edema) allowing a THz based system to generate significant contrast without the need for substantial model based analysis or knowledge of tissue morphology. Further, excess tissue water content confounds the measurement of blood perfusion which is the key contrast mechanism of the majority of biophotonic systems thus suggesting a key advantage of THz frequency imaging. The third application is the early detection of corneal diseases that are correlated with changes in corneal tissue water content. Current practice limits diagnostics to the measurement of corneal thickness and extrapolation to water content which itself is incredibly inaccurate and does not account for physiologic variation. While disease related changes in tissue water content are small, the physiologic variation in corneal thickness, as referenced to THz wavelengths is nearly negligible. Thus the cornea can be treated as a thin film and model based analysis can be applied with reliable a priori assumptions on tissue morphology.
WMC-4	: THz Radiometers for Remote Sensing of Clouds and Precipitation from Constellations of Small Satellites
Steven Reising
Steven Reising, Colorado State Univ.
Global observations of clouds and precipitation are essential to improve prediction of severe weather having substantial impacts on human life and property. To this end, satellites in geostationary orbit (GEO) have greatly improved weather prediction by providing visible and infrared measurements on the 5- to 10-minute time scale. However, to peer inside of and help understand clouds, ice processes and the onset of precipitation requires millimeter-wave to THz sensors. At the same time, the satellite industry has recently experienced the maturation of disruptive technology and manufacturing processes to build and launch U-Class satellites. Commonly called CubeSats, these small satellites feature rapid development cycles (about two years) and low-cost launches (less than $0.5 M) as secondary payloads on missions of opportunity. Specifically, 6U-Class satellites provide healthy margins on mass, power, communications and antenna apertures to accommodate millimeter-wave to THz (90-900 GHz) sensors capable of observing clouds and precipitation on a global basis. A closely-spaced constellation of such remote sensors of precipitation can observe the time evolution of ice cloud processes leading to precipitation with revisit times on the order of 5 minutes. Currently, a 6U-Class satellite is being produced to perform technology demonstration for a constellation mission known as the Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems (TEMPEST). A partnership among Colorado State University (lead institution), NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Blue Canyon Technologies, TEMPEST-D is planned to be delivered by July 2017 for a NASA-provided launch by April 2018.
WMC-5	: Single Biological Cell Detection using Terahertz and Microwave Radiation
Stephen Hanham, Norbert Klein
Stephen Hanham, Norbert Klein, Imperial College London
We describe the integration of microfluidics with high quality factor electrical resonators for the creation of lab-on-a-chip devices for the analysis of small quantities of biological, toxic, explosive, and other liquid types at terahertz and microwave frequencies. These devices are capable of measuring the complex permittivity of sub-microliter liquid samples, and we demonstrate this sensitivity by detecting individual biological cells in a free-flowing buffer solution. The dielectric measurement of single biological cells in the terahertz and microwave bands represents a possible route for the label-free detection of circulating tumour cells in blood samples, and we present results towards realizing this goal.
WMC-6	: Plasmonics-Enhanced Terahertz Imaging and Sensing Systems
Mona Jarrahi
Mona Jarrahi, Univ. of California, Los Angeles
In spite of the considerable progress in terahertz technology, practical feasibility of many exciting applications of terahertz systems is still bound by the low power, poor efficiency, and bulky nature of existing terahertz sources. Photoconduction is one of the most promising and commonly used means of terahertz generation, due to availability of high power, wavelength tunable, and compact optical sources with pulsed and continuous-wave operation required for broadband and narrowband terahertz generation, respectively. Here, we present an overview of recent advances in photoconductive terahertz emitters that utilize plasmonic nanostructures to significantly enhance optical-to-terahertz power conversion efficiency by enhancing light-matter interaction at nanoscale. Utilizing plasmonic nanostructures in a photoconductive emitter allows concentrating a larger fraction of the incident pump photons within nanoscale distances from the contact electrodes. By reducing the average transport path of photocarriers to the contact electrodes, the ultrafast photocurrent that drives the terahertz antenna is significantly enhanced and the optical-to-terahertz power conversion efficiency is increased considerably. This enhancement mechanism has been widely used in various photoconductive terahertz emitters with a variety of device architectures and in various operational settings, demonstrating significant optical-to-terahertz conversion efficiency enhancements. We demonstrate that use of two-dimensional and three-dimensional plasmonic nanostructures leads to 2 orders-of-magnitude and 3 orders-of-magnitude enhancement in the optical to terahertz conversion efficiency of conventional photoconductive emitters, respectively, offering a record-high optical to terahertz conversion efficiency of ~10%. We show that the significant performance enhancement offered by plasmonic nanostructures can be utilized to achieve record-high terahertz power levels in both continuous-wave and pulsed operation at optical pump wavelengths ranging from 800-1550 nm.
WMC-7	: A General Review of THz Sensor Applications
Christian Damm
Christian Damm, Technische Universitat Darmstadt
A global review of the actual state of the art of THz Sensor activities is given. This includes biomedical and environmental applications as well as industrial testing. In this presentation the focus is put on the electromagnetic/physical aspects not on the signal and image processing which is an important part in some applications as well.
WMC-8	: Graphene Plasmonic Metasurfaces as Infrared Optics
Philip W.C. Hon
Philip W.C. Hon, Northrop Grumman Corporation
Increasing optical and electrical functionality within a volume drive the continued sub-wavelength scaling of nano-scaled devices. Studies of light matter interaction (LMI) in the sub-wavelength regime have revealed unique absorption, scattering, and transmission characteristics. Unconventional devices based on such characteristics include sub-wavelength perfect absorbing films, devices with tailored scattering signatures, and devices with electromagnetically induced transmission, to name a few. To achieve smaller volumes and enhanced LMI, extreme light confinement is needed and is realized with plasmons, which are sub-wavelength surface electromagnetic waves at an interface with permittivities of differing sign. Recent research in sub-wavelength plasmon metasurfaces offer significant potential to control far-field light propagation through the engineering of amplitude, polarization, and phase at an interface. We discuss in this presentation demonstrated phase modulation from an electronically reconfigurable metasurface based on a van der Waals material, graphene. Based on experimental data, we discuss the feasibility of reconfigurable mid-infrared beam steering devices based on a 2-D material.
WMG:
New Developments in Microwave Measurements for Planar Circuits and Components
Matthias Ohlrogge, Uwe Arz
Fraunhofer IAF, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB)
High-frequency on-wafer measurement techniques are fundamental prerequisites for many applications in science, engineering and metrology. While reliable planar measurements up to millimetre-wave frequencies are becoming more and more state-of-the-art, the traceability in an industrial characterisation process, planar S-parameter measurements of nano-devices and the extension to frequencies beyond 100 GHz are still open topics to the scientific and industrial community. Therefore the aim of this workshop is to provide an overview of these current research areas and to present future directions in the field of planar on-wafer measurements. The first part of this workshop is therefore related to the fundamental question of how to achieve traceability in planar on-wafer measurements. More specifically, this means we will discuss the characterization and verification process of different error mechanisms in a planar on-wafer environment. The second part of the workshop is linked to the measurement of nano-electronic devices. Since these components are rapidly finding their way into the field of millimetre and sub-millimetre wave frequencies, we are facing even more the difficulty of how to perform reliable RF measurements on such devices. This includes issues such as the impedance mismatch problem or the challenge of probing at nanoscale dimensions. Besides the complexity regarding the measurement of nano-devices, reliable on wafer measurements at sub-millimetre frequencies are nowadays getting increasingly important. At these high frequencies one faces the problem of crosstalk phenomena and excitation of higher order modes. These relevant topics together with future thoughts on how to solve them shall be covered in the third part of this workshop. To summarize the workshop and get a broad feedback on potential future topics we will initiate a round table discussion at the end. At this point everybody will have the opportunity to interact with the speakers more closely than in the short discussions after each talk.
WMG-1	: PlanarCal - A European Project on Planar S-parameter Measurements
Uwe Arz
Uwe Arz, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB)
This talk will present an overview of the European project PlanarCal, which is funded from the European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research (EMPIR). The overall aim of the project is to enable the traceable measurement and electrical characterisation of integrated planar circuits and components from radio-frequency (RF) to sub-mm frequencies. This will allow industry to characterise components and devices for eventual use in high-speed and microwave applications (e.g. wireless communications, automotive radar and medical sensing) with known measurement uncertainties.
WMG-2	: Traceability for Large-signal on-wafer Measurements
Dylan F. Williams
Dylan F. Williams, NIST
The National Institute of Standards and Technology has put together a traceability path for large-signal on-wafer measurements that starts with on-wafer measurements and extends all the way through circuit design and simulation. We will discuss this entire traceability path. We will begin with the fundamental linear part of the calibration, which focuses on on-wafer impedance and scattering-parameter measurements. Then we will turn to the amplitude and phase aspects of the calibrations. We will discuss how these uncertainties can be propagated through the device modeling process, and how we can add process variations to the results. Finally, we will discuss the creation of models that capture not only the impact of measurement uncertainty and process variation in the model development process, but touch on how these can be seamlessly implemented in ADS and other circuit simulation tools.
WMG-3	: On-Wafer Measurements with VNA Tools II
Johannes Hoffmann, Michael Wollensack, Juerg Ruefenacht
Johannes Hoffmann, Eidgenössisches Institut für Metrologie METAS
Depending on the application there are a multitude of calibration algorithms (SOLT, TRL, LRL, LRM, …) which are applied to on-wafer measurements. Additionally there are many uncertainty contributions (contact repeatability, drift of the VNA, cross-talk, uncertainty of the standards, ...) which have to be considered for estimating measurement uncertainty. VNA Tools is a free software which can be used to calibrate on-wafer measurement data and which propagates the uncertainties to the final result. Starting from the experimental characterization of uncertainty sources up to the final result with error budget, all steps are shown in an exemplary on-wafer calibration.
WMG-4	: Precision and Reproducible On-Wafer Measurement at Millimeter-wave and THz frequency
Masahiro Horibe
Masahiro Horibe, National Metrology Institute of Japan (NMIJ)
On-wafer probing technology have widely been demanded at millimeter-wave and Terahertz frequencies. However in order to make precision and reproducible measurements, all other aspects of the measurement techniques must be considered. This talk will present the AIST's probe contact algorism and over-determined wafer-level calibration technique in order to precision and reproducible wafer-level VNA measurements that can be achieved.
WMG-5	: Wafer-level Calibration, Measurement and Measurement Uncertainties at the mm-wave Frequency Range
Andrej Rumiantsev
Andrej Rumiantsev, MPI Corporation
Wafer-level S-parameter measurement at mm-wave and sub-mm wave frequencies plays a crucial role in the model development and IC design verification and debug of advanced semiconductor technologies. Accurate calibration of the entire wafer-level measurement system to the RF probe tip end or to the intrinsic device terminals is a critical success factor for extracting trustable device model parameters and characterizing true performance of a MMIC. This presentation will start with the basics of S-parameter measurement and calibration techniques at the wafer-level. Special attention will be paid to how to choose the right calibration method for specific measurement application needs. Definition of the calibration reference plane and the measurement reference impedance of a calibrated system will be reviewed as well. Finally, the potential sources of calibration residual errors will be analyzed. Practical examples will be given on how to minimize the impact of such errors on the measurement accuracy of a calibrated probe system.
WMG-6	: On-wafer Characterization of Nano-electronic Devices and Nanomaterials
Mitch Wallis, Pavel Kabos
Mitch Wallis, NIST
The ongoing miniaturization of electronic devices has led to the discovery of new nanomaterials and new phenomena at the nanoscale. In turn, this has led to the design, fabrication, and development of RF nanoelectronic devices that incorporate nanoscale elements or nanomaterials, such as carbon nanotubes, semiconducting nanowires, or graphene. Reliable, accurate, on-wafer measurements of such devices are critical to their optimization and commercialization. To this end, a full framework, including measurement, modeling, and validation, has been developed for on-wafer characterization of RF nanoelectronics. The calibration approach is based on the on-wafer, multiline thru-reflect-line technique. Further, this framework addresses the inherent impedance mismatch between RF nanoelectronic devices and commercial test equipment. Finally, circuit and finite-element models are used to extract circuit and material parameters for the devices.
WMG-7	: Near-field Scanning Millimeter-wave Microscope Combined with a Scanning Electron Microscope
Kamel Haddadi
Kamel Haddadi, Institut d'Electronique de Microélectronique et de Nanotechnologie
Nanotechnology emerges from the physical, chemical, biological and engineering sciences, where novel tools and techniques are developed to probe and manipulate single atoms and molecules. In particular, the introduction of near-field scanning microwave microscopy tools have pioneered many applications, notably including mapping and quantitative measurement of complex impedances of nano-devices and electromagnetic properties of materials. In this frame, a unique scanning 1-110 GHz scanning microwave microscope built inside a scanning electron microscope is developed. The system can produces simultaneously complex impedance, atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy images providing novel and unique equipment featuring unprecedented capabilities for tackling the frontiers between spatial resolution and frequency domain.
WMG-8	: Benefits and Obstacles of Planar On-wafer Measurements at Submillimeter Frequencies
Matthias Ohlrogge
Matthias Ohlrogge, Fraunhofer IAF
In the last few years electronic devices increased their corner frequencies tremendously, on the one hand due to material optimizations and on the other hand due to the ongoing miniaturization in device size. Especially the miniaturization of device size resulting in an increase of the corner frequencies leads to parasitic effects like fringing or coupling that have an influence on the device behavior even at lower frequencies and therefore have to be well described in the modelling process. In this talk we will show, that specifically the stability prediction of devices models, even at low frequencies, can be much improved, when we consider the above stated high frequency effects. Nevertheless the precise characterization of these effects needs reliable on-wafer measurements at sub-millimeter frequencies, which is of course not straight forward achievable with a classical design of the on-wafer access- and test structures. Therefore this talk will additionally look at obstacles that occur during the planar on-wafer measurement for the device characterization at sub-millimeter frequencies. At the end we will present some interesting new approaches that are going to improve the main problems of device characterization at sub-millimeter frequencies.
WMG-9	: Design, Characterization and Evaluation of TRL Calibration Kits Integrated using Silicon Based Technologies
Marco Spirito
Marco Spirito, Delft Univ. of Technology
With the continuous up-scaling of the maximum operation frequency of commercially available integration technologies, mm-wave circuits are entering real-life applications, such as automotive radar and high data rate wireless and wired links. In order to foster these device improvements and increase the penetration of mm-wave applications in the commercial world, the availability of accurate measurement techniques, for low-cost, large-volume technology platforms, is becoming a key requirement. However, the need to design accurate calibration kits in the same medium as that of the DUT, due to the error arising from calibration transfer at mm-waves, is colliding with complexities and stringent design rules encountered when integrating components is silicon technologies. In this presentation, an overview of all currently employed techniques for defining the parameters required by TRL calibrations are presented, highlighting advantages and drawbacks of the available approaches. Design guides to implement high precision TRL kits up to the sub-mm-wave range are given. The main drawbacks in terms of propagation of un-wanted modes and improper coupling through the probe to pad transition are also analyzed. Finally, the evaluation of the quality achieved by calibration kits integrated on commercially available silicon technology is presented.
WMG-10	: Modeling Conductor Surface Roughness
Gerald Gold
Gerald Gold, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU)
This talk covers essential aspects of modeling surface roughness for microwave applications based on underlying physics. At first, surface roughness metrology and commonly used roughness parameters are described. Existing models and their limitations are discussed before the recently proposed Gradient Model is introduced. To this purpose, the modeling approach, the derivation from Maxwell's equations, model predictions and their experimental verification are shown. Then a corresponding surface impedance concept is derived, which allows for easy application of the Gradient Model with 3D field solvers or analytical models. Therewith obtained simulation results illustrate roughness impact on loss and phase delay in typical transmission lines. Comparison to measurement results up to 100GHz show, that the Gradient Model accurately predicts these quantities for rough conductor surfaces. Furthermore the impact from imperfect surfaces on planar CPW calibration standards is shown.
WMI:
Novel 5G Applications of Nonlinear Vector Network Analyzer for Broadband Modulation and Millimeter Wave Characterization
Patrick Roblin, Apolinar Reynoso-Hernandez
Ohio State Univ., Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education
The world's thirst for communication keeps on increasing as users are attracted to new broadband services for accessing data on the cloud, video-conferencing, and streaming videos using various user equipment's. This growing demand for higher data rates (>=6 Gpbs) is motivating vigorous research activities world-wide on the development of wideband and multiband systems above and below 6 GHz. The fifth generation (5G) of wireless standards are being developed for cellular communication by 3GPP to directly address these issues. This workshop will focus on new 5G applications of nonlinear vector network analyzers (NVNAs) including: (1) Vector signal analysis for measuring with a high dynamic range, modulated signals with very large bandwidth (multiple GHz). (2) The characterization of millimeter transistors which includes the impact of large-signal cyclo-stationary memory effects in CW mm-wave small-signal response. (3) Newly supportive phase references and phase-calibration techniques for NVNAs permitting the full characterization of RF PAs under various wideband and multiband excitations. With the development of these novel measurement techniques, new challenges in behavioral & circuit modeling of devices for broadband modulated multi-harmonic excitations must also be addressed. This includes characterizing and modeling the mutual coupling between the elements of the massive MIMO active antenna array and the associated dynamic load modulation it induces. Also the mixed-signal instrumentation and measurement approaches needed to characterize software defined radio and digital radio front ends for the new 5G communication paradigm will be presented together with the application of D-parameters to mixed-signal integrated solutions for 5G. This workshop will bring together some of the leading world experts in the field to present both these novel measurement techniques and associated emerging behavioral modeling techniques.
WMI-1	: NVNA for Accurate DUT Measurements with Wideband Repetitive Modulated Signals
Jean-Pierre Teyssier
Jean-Pierre Teyssier, Keysight Technologies
Taking together the NonLinear Vector Network Analyzer and the Spectrum Analyzer capabilities of a modern network analyzer makes available very accurate vector (IQ) measurements of wideband modulated test signals. As the active DUT (can be power amplifier or frequency converter devices) input and output waves are measured coherently within a calibrated network environment, new insights exhibiting the DUT stimulus/response under modulated signals are demonstrated.
WMI-2	: Dynamic-bias Measurements for Microwave and mm-Wave Transistor Characterization: A Step Further
Dominique Schreurs, Gustavo Avolio, Antonio Raffo
Dominique Schreurs, Gustavo Avolio, K.U. Leuven
The talk focuses on the recently introduced dynamic-bias measurement technique for transistor characterization at microwave and mm-wave frequencies. We will discuss various measurement set-ups to perform dynamic-bias measurements and show how to use these measurements in the modeling phase. Furthermore we will introduce dynamic-bias S-parameters, which can be directly derived from dynamic-bias measurements and represent a natural extension of classical multi-bias S-parameters. In particular, we will show how these parameters allows one to obtain a more effective characterization of low- and high-frequency dispersive effects.
WMI-3	: Millimeter-Wave Multi-GHz-IF Receivers: Linearity and Correction Considerations
Receiver performance can sometimes be a limiting issue in mm-wave, wide modulation bandwidth systems. The higher and wider IF frequencies can present some unique linearity and correction challenges particularly in variable gain and A/D conversion areas. This talk will explore some of the more subtle linearity and distortion issues at multi-GHz IFs, how they can be characterized, and sometimes mitigated or corrected.
WMI-4	: Dense-spectral-grid Multi-band NVNA Measurement for Characterizing RF PA Inter-modulation and Harmonic Nonlinearities
Yichi Zhang
Yichi Zhang, National Institute of Metrology
The content might be described as "Under large-signal modulated excitations, RF PAs show significant inter-modulation and harmonic nonlinearities at the same time. In order to characterize the actual PA behavior in real life, the multi-harmonic modulated PA input/output waves have to be entirely and correctly measured. In the presentation, newly proposed phase reference and phase calibration techniques are introduced and discussed, based on which the NVNA test-bed could be developed for the full characterization of RF PAs under various wideband excitations. Moreover, other potential techniques and non-mature ideas under development are shared for discussion.
WMI-5	: Review of Broadband Behavioral Modeling and Linearization Techniques for 5G
Patrick Roblin, Meenakshi Rawat
Patrick Roblin, Meenakshi Rawat, The Ohio State University, ITT Roorkee, India
The behavioral models used for the representation of CW and modulated multi-harmonic data will be reviewed in this lecture. This will include the general multi-harmonic Volterra functions for CW periodic nonlinear RF excitations, the X-parameter/S-function approximations for mildly nonlinear RF excitations and their extension for broadband modulated multi-harmonic signals. Next this lecture will consider the characterization and mitigation of the impairments associated with the PA nonlinearities in SDR systems when the same power amplifier is used for the amplification of concurrent multiple-band signals (carrier aggregation). Both predistortion and feedforward approaches for modulated harmonic cancelation will also be presented. Finally this review will conclude with a discussion on nonlinear impairments in MIMO systems and advanced configurations for self-testing and adaptation which might be called up on for their mitigation.
WMI-6	: Robust Digital Predistortion Method Based on Dynamic X-parameters
Jan Verspecht
Jan Verspecht, Keysight Technologies
We present a digital pre-distortion (DPD) method based on dynamic X-parameters. We first explain how long term memory effects can be modelled by dynamic X-parameters. Next we show how a dynamic X-parameter model can be inverted in order to generate a robust DPD method. The resulting DPD is more robust than existing DPD techniques as it works well for a wide range of modulation bandwidths and signal amplitude distributions.
WMI-7	: Challenges for Nonlinear Memory Characterization and Modeling in Broadband PA Applications
Edouard Ngoya, Damien Gapillout, Sebastien Mons
Edouard Ngoya, XLIM, University of Limoges, France
The continuous growth of data rate requirements in modern wireless communications leads to more-and-more complex and wideband modulation signals that need to be processed by the transmit power amplifier with high fidelity at the lowest power consumption. These are making design, characterization and modeling of the power amplifier very challenging due to the combination of wide variability of the signal time statistics, high dynamic range and very large bandwidth. The presentation will summarize some recent advances on the behavioral modeling methodologies of the nonlinear memory of power amplifiers.
WMI-8	: NVNA Measurements for 5G Active Antenna Array Behavioral Modeling
José Carlos Pedro, Filipe Barradas, Telmo Cunha
José Carlos Pedro, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal
Massive MIMO, MMIMO, systems for 5-G wireless networks pose new problems to nonlinear transmitter modeling and its extraction. Contrary to conventional transmitters where the output amplifier drives a fixed load, mutual coupling between the elements of the MMIMO active antenna array is seen by the interacting power amplifiers, PAs, as a form of dynamic load modulation. Therefore, the fixed load condition, which is one of the strongest underlying assumptions in the traditional low-pass equivalent transmitter behavioral models, can no longer hold, and a single-input/dual-output formulation, for the nonlinear dynamic PAs, followed by a multi-input/multi-output network, representing the linear and dynamic radiation sub-system, must be adopted. The present talk addresses this new transmitter behavioral model formulation and the nonlinear vector network analyzer systems required to extract them. Various possible behavioral model formulations are reviewed in terms of complexity and accuracy while their corresponding measurements systems will be discussed in terms of both the required hardware measurement set-ups and modulated stimuli.
WMI-9	: Enabling 5G digital Communications using D-Parameters
Nuno Borges Carvalho
Nuno Borges Carvalho, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal
In this talk mixed-signal instrumentation and measurement approaches will be presented to characterize software defined radio and digital radio front ends for the new 5G communication paradigm. The talk will present the main drawbacks, the calibration procedures and the framework to apply D-parameters to mixed-signal integrated solutions for 5G. Some practical examples will be showed including the application of this approach to digital pre-distortion approaches.
WMJ:
PAs for 5G Mobile Communication: Technologies and Challenges
Kamal Samanta, Rüdiger Quay
Sony Corp., Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics
Ever rising demand of high data-traffic expects significant deployment of 5G cellular systems in 2020. 5G communication system demands high data rate, up to 10 Gbps, RF or hybrid beamforming, high device density for IOT and very dense base-station deployment. These unprecedented demands require new-generation power amplifiers (PAs) operating at millimetre-wave bands and delivering high linear power with wide-bandwidth and high efficiency yet with highly reduced size and cost. Therefore, broadband linear PAs with high efficiency at high PAPR, supporting higher order modulation, is one of the most critical components for a 5G mobile and backhaul system. This requires an novel solution in semiconductor (SC)/device technology in combination with innovative circuit topologies and integration techniques. Si devices are very attractive due to high maturity, complex digital and multifunction capability at a low cost. Whereas III/V compound semiconductors (GaAs, GaN & InP) provide higher power, bandwidth and efficiency. Recently there are enormous advancement in Si/SiGe and III/V PAs, including those on SOI for addressing the high performance and cost simultaneously. This very timely workshop will incorporate a wide range of presentations highlighting the recent trends and the state-of the art developments in semiconductor/device technologies as well as circuit and system design and integration techniques for 5G PAs, including those for Ka band handsets as well as Ka, E, and W bands infrastructure. Workshop will present the latest result and compare performance of novel PAs and PA intensive sub-systems, like RF beamformer, for various circuit and device technologies, and in terms of BW, ACLR, efficiency with high PAPR, and cost. This will include PAs using CMOS/BiCMOS (on Si and SOI), SiGe, GaN (on SOI and SiC) and GaAs. Further, will present PAs with circuit topologies including Doherty, outphasing, stacked and envelope-tracking for enhanced performance at back-off power, for fulfilling challenging requirements for 5G deployment.
WMJ-1	: GaN/Si MMICs for 5G Mobile Telecommunications
Marc Rocchi
Marc Rocchi, OMMIC
In the early 90's , Cellular telecommunications adopted the GSM ( 2G) standard and opened up a significant market segment for GaAs solutions in the form of 4W GaAs HBT PAs for the handsets and low noise receivers for the base stations.Eversince , Si solutions have been catching up and nibbling off at the GaAs MMIC market share. The upcoming advent of 5G mobile telecommunications, will again put III/V solutions in the forefront. The move to Ka band hand sets as well as Ka , E ,and W bands infrastructure, paves the way to very advanced and economically sustainable GaN/Si transmit and receive MMICs. In this context , OMMIC has developed 100nm and 60nm GaN/Si processes offering unequalled power , linearity and low noise performance up to 100GHz at 12V, meeting the system requirements and fully replacing GaAs solutions. A full range of relevant 5G MMICs will be presented at the workshop including Ka band 10W PAs with 30% PAE and a full T/R chip.
WMJ-2	: Efficient RF to mm-wave Power Amplifiers based on SiGe and CMOS SOI Technologies
Saeed Mohammadi
Saeed Mohammadi, Purdue University, USA
In this presentation, various techniques to implement linear power amplifiers (PAs) for application in 5G communication will be first introduced. Specifically, techniques that are used to design SiGe and CMOS SOI RF to mm-wave PAs will be discussed in details. A technique adopted by the presenter and his group that is based on stacking of power amplifier cells in scaled CMOS SOI technologies is also presented. Stacking of PA cells facilitates relatively high output powers and wide bandwidths without a need to utilize on-chip power combining networks. Mechanisms that degrade linear output power and efficiency of PAs are also identified and ways to suppress these effects and enhance the PA power performance are presented. Several examples of high efficiency linear PAs based on standard scaled SiGe BiCMOS and CMOS SOI technologies with output powers approaching 1Watt and peak power added efficiencies in the excess of 20% will also be presented. Possible future directions for SiGe and CMOS SOI PAs for 5G applications and beyond will also be discussed.
WMJ-3	: 5G PA Implementation and Integration Aspects
Kamal Samanta, Chris Clifton
Kamal Samanta, Sony Europe, UK, United Kingdom
Short Description: This paper will review the challenges for 5G mmWave power amplifiers for mobile and basestation terminals and examine a range of PA architectures, efficiency enhancement and linearization schemes. From the viewpoint of system and practical implementation requirements, the most promising techniques will be highlighted and compared in terms of the key figures of merit.
WMJ-4	: High-efficiency CMOS/BiCMOS PAs for Complex Waveforms at Microwave and Millimeter-wave Bands
Jim Buckwalter
Jim Buckwalter, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Mobile and backhaul transmitters for high-capacity networks are increasingly concerned with power consumption constraints. The desire for high average efficiency in RF and millimeter-wave systems has spurred interest in load and envelope modulation circuit techniques that are compatible with CMOS and/or SiGe BiCMOS technologies. This talk will present challenges confronting for wideband (up to 2 GHz) and high PAPR waveforms that have been proposed for 5G systems. I will present several examples of circuit solutions that we have developed to improve PA performance at back-off operating conditions through the use of Doherty, outphasing, and envelope tracking techniques at both microwave and millimeter-wave bands.
WMJ-5	: Advanced GaAs Integration For 5G Mobile Communications
David Danzilio
David Danzilio, WIN Semiconductor Foundry, Taiwan
Compound semiconductor technology, and specifically GaAs, has captured a large and growing market share in wireless and optical systems by providing the optimum combination of RF performance and value. To remain the solution of choice in next generation systems and applications, GaAs technology has to compliment its inherent performance advantage with increased integration and functionality. Historically, GaAs has lagged Si technology in offering multiple device types on the same wafer (e,g, power, low noise, E/D logic, schottky diode, PIN diode, etc) to enable highly integrated multifunctional MMICs. This gap is rapidly closing and this presentation will describe several advanced GaAs platforms that incorporate new levels of functionality within high performance GaAs HBT and pHEMT technologies. These platforms provide users with a new set of tools to address the ever evolving and complex performance requirements of present and future communication systems.
WMJ-6	: GaN PAs and Modules for 5G Infrastructure and Backhaul to mm-wave Frequencies
Rüdiger Quay
Rüdiger Quay, Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics, Germany
From a PA performance point of view GaN PAs offer a lot of efficiency enhancement for 5G applications, especially in the new targeted PA bands from 3-6 GHz and at the mm-wave. Gallium Nitride IC technology further justify their existence in the 5G by very good performances for backhaul links around 30 GHz, around 60 GHz and at E-band. Further the good performance allows reduction of transistor numbers in amplifier stages which allows compact module integration in wavelength-limited spacing of active MIMO antennae to be deployed. The paper discusses novel Pas and MMICs between 3-6 GHz, 30 GHz, 60 GHz to 84 GHz which are in-line with the recent performance advancements of Gallium Nitride while maintaining the cost balance.
WMJ-7	: Doherty and Outphasing Power Amplifiers for 5G Systems
Mustafa Özen
He will talk about a PA line-up consisting of CMOS based pre-PA and GaN power stage for array-antenna systems. He would also explain the biasing and power-on sequencing
WMJ-8	: Power Amplifier Requirements for mm-Wave 5G Systems
Bror W. Peterson
Bror W. Peterson, Qorvo, USA
This session will discuss the challenges and trade-offs for millimeter-wave 5G systems and the specific impact to PA requirements. Starting from a basic understanding of the 5G link budget and phased array architecture, the derived per element PA power levels are presented. Then an analysis on total power consumption will highlight sweet spots based on the performance and efficiency of different device technologies. The main frequency bands, spectral masks, and ACPR requirements will be discussed. A system level transmit chain line-up analysis will highlight the gain and linearity budget needed to support the high-order multi-carrier modulation schemes being proposed. Lattice spacing requirements and constraints on die size, packaging, and minimum integration levels will be discussed as well as thermal challenges and considerations. Finally, the advantages of GaN PAs for base-stations is discussed and recent performance results are presented.
WMK:
RF and Optical Techniques for Non-Contact and Wearable Health Monitoring
aly Fathy, Changzhi Li
Univ. of Tennessee, Texas Tech
In recent few years, both the industry and academia are working diligently in making non-contact and wearable devices for assessments of health condition such as cardiovascular function an in-expensive practice in daily life. Among all the possible solutions, optical and radio frequency techniques have shown great promise because of their prevalence in day-to-day routine and compatibility with many consumer electronic devices. Cameras, WiFi devices, and plug-in radar devices are among the most popular solutions. This workshop presents some of the recent developments on optical and radio frequency technologies for non-contact and wearable monitoring of health information such as respiration and heartbeat. The technologies presented operate in a broad frequency range from a few hundreds of MHz to optical spectrum, with operation range from a few meters to direct-contact detection. Special emphasis of this workshop is dedicated to solutions at both the circuit and system levels. High sensitivity, low cost, and ease of integration with existing consumer electronics such as smart phones are some of the distinguished features of the presented technologies. A panel discussion will provide valuable comparison among different non-invasive health monitoring solutions and guide the audience toward the future of commercial development and scientific research.
WMK-1	: Comparison of UWB Doppler radar and Camera based Photoplethysmography in Non-contact Multiple Heartbeats Detection
Lingyun Ren, Farnaz Foroughian, Sabikun Nahar, Aly Fathy
Aly Fathy, Univ. of Tennessee
Efficient non-contact vital sign accurate detection methods are needed to develop continuous tracking of elderly population, infants, and suicidal subjects 24/7 observation. Doppler radars and optical based imaging photoplethysmography (IPPG) have been successfully used non-contact vital sign detection. Both methods are presented and their limitations will be discussed.
WMK-2	: A Robust Non-contact Vital Signs Monitoring Using a Camera
Ashok Veeraraghavan
Ashok Veeraraghavan, Rice Univ.
THE PROBLEM? Measuring and monitoring any patient's vital signs is essential for their care- in fact, all care first begins by collecting vital signs like heart rate and blood pressure. The current standard of care is based on monitoring devices that require contact - electrocardiograms, pulse-oximeter, blood pressure cuffs, and chest straps. However, contact-based methods have serious limitations for monitoring vital signs of neonates as they have extremely sensitive skin and most contact-based vital sign monitoring techniques result in skin abrasions, peeling and damage every time the leads or patches are removed. This results in potentially dangerous sites for infection increasing the mortality risk to the neonates. OUR SOLUTION? We propose to use normal camera to measure the vital signs of a patient by simply recording video of their face in a non-contact manner. From the recorded video of the face, our algorithm, distancePPG, extracts pulse rate (PR), pulse rate variability (PRV) and breathing rate (BR). The algorithm is based on estimating tiny changes in skin color due to changes in blood volume underneath the skin surface (these changes are invisible to the naked eye, but can be captured by a camera). Our algorithm, distancePPG (patent pending), achieves clinical grade accuracy for all skin tones, under low light conditions and can account for natural motion of subjects. It does so by intelligently combining skin color change signal from different regions of the visible skin in a manner that improves the overall signal strength. Our algorithm results in as much as 6dB of SNR improvement in harsh scenarios, rapidly expanding the scope, viability, reach and utility of CameraVitals as a replacement for traditional contact-based vital sign monitor.
WMK-3	: Arrhythmia Discrimination Using a Smartphone
Jo Woon Chong
Jo Woon Chong, Texas Tech University, USA
Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia. Over 5.2 million Americans have been diagnosed with AF, and the prevalence of AF is increasing concomitant with the aging of the U.S. population. AF exerts a significant negative impact on the longevity and quality of life of a growing number of Americans, predominantly through its association with an increased risk for heart failure and stroke. Effective AF treatments reduce a risk of complications from AF. A major challenge facing clinicians and researchers is the early detection of AF, because particularly in its early stages, AF can be intermittent and asymptomatic. While the population with undiagnosed AF is substantial, studies have shown that more intensive cardiac monitoring can improve AF detection and enable timelier institution of treatment. Automated AF detection algorithms offer real-time realizable AF detection but often suffer from the fact that common benign causes of rhythm irregularity, most notably premature atrial (PAC) and ventricular (PVC) contractions, can cause false positive AF detection. There is a pressing need to develop a continuous arrhythmia monitoring device that can accurately and reproducibly distinguish between AF, NSR, and premature beats (PACs and PVCs) in order to improve patients' cardiovascular health and reduce the costs associated with treating AF. To this end, we have recently developed a smartphone application for arrhythmia discrimination, which can identify NSR, AF, PACs and PVCs using pulsatile time series collected from a smartphone's camera. This application detects and removes motion and noise artifacts (MNAs). This talk discusses the development and clinical testing of arrhythmia discrimination. Given the ever-growing popularity of wearable devices and smartphones, our approach to arrhythmia discrimination will give the population as well as health care providers the opportunity to monitor arrhythmia under a wide variety of conditions outside of the physician's office.
WMK-4	: An Advanced Self-Injection-Locked Radar for Monitoring Vital Signs with Reduced Body Motion Artifacts
Tzyy-Sheng Horng
Tzyy-Sheng Horng, Department of Electrical Engineering, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Taiwan
As a crucial advantage, the self-injection-locked (SIL) radar is highly sensitive and inherently immune to stationary clutter, such as that produced by background reflection and antenna coupling. This work presents the superiority of the SIL radar over the conventional continuous-wave (CW) radar in terms of sensitivity under the same conditions of clutter and power consumption. Moreover, with the help of signal processing or mutual-injection-locking techniques, an advanced SIL radar was developed to monitor human vital signs with reduced body motion artifacts.
WMK-5	: Non-contact Non-invasive Monitoring of Small Laboratory Animal's Vital Sign Activities Using a 60-GHz Radar
Tien-Yu Huang, Jenshan Lin
Tien-Yu Huang, University of Florida, USA
In this talk, we will present test results of of monitoring respiration and heartbeat of laboratory rats/mice using a 60-GHz system-in-package integrated micro-radar to perform non-contact, non-invasive measurement. The system hardware, detection method, and data processing algorithm will be described. This system allows the lab animals' respiration and heartbeat to be monitored continuously without the need of surgical implants and will eliminate the fatality rate through the surgical/recovery process
WMK-6	: Wireless Wearable Physiological Sensors
Victor Lubecke, Olga Lubecke
Victor Lubecke, University of Hawaii, USA
Body worn sensors can be used to capture a wide variety of human biometric data, and with the appropriate wireless infrastructure this information can be used to empower disruptive new systems for healthcare, security, and human machine interaction. Lightweight unobtrusive sensors worn close to the skin of as attachments or clothing can measure cardio-electric signals, bio-impedance, cardiopulmonary and limb motion, gestures, activity, and other useful biometric quantities. Such sensors can be passive or active, and in some cases can also harvest energy associated with these measures to power both sensing and wireless communications functions. The information collected by such systems can be used for applications including medical analysis for healthcare tracking, motion capture for motion compensation or virtual and augmented reality gaming or simulations, and for applications in subject identification and security. This presentation will cover theory and techniques for sensors, communications, and applications for a variety of wireless wearable systems.
WMK-7	: Wearable Radar Sensors for Indoor Tracking and Health Monitoring
Changzhi Li, Roberto García, Jose Munoz
Changzhi Li, Texas Tech University, USA, University of Alcala, Spain, USA
Wearable smart sensors with embedded control and communication links have the potential to improve the quality of service in healthcare, security monitoring, and energy conservation. This presentation provides an overview of our research activities on wearable radar sensors for indoor tracking and health monitoring applications. In a smart building, short-range radars can map the environment and monitor health condition to benefit the human well-being. Starting from basic motion and range measurement theory, our recent research efforts on wearable FMCW/interferometry/UWB radar for position tracking, fall prevention and detection, and localization will be discussed. Technical details will be presented, followed by video demonstrations of the developed technologies. Finally, the outlook of wearable radar sensor will be discussed.
WMK-8	: Medical Device Product Trends: Size, Wireless, and Technology
Eric Chow
Eric Chow, LivaNova Neuromodulation Unit, USA
The medical device industry has been seeing a significant jump in technology with notable advancements in size and wireless capabilities. Increasing competition and maturing markets, particularly in cardiology applications, are also drivers for the recent advancements. Device miniaturization is allowing for pacemakers to be implanted via a catheterization procedure while some diagnostic devices can now be done in a simple doctor's office procedure. On the wireless side, medical technology has avoided using the same frequencies as the consumer market due to concerns including interference and security. More recently, however, implantable devices are seeing a trend towards compatibility with consumer market devices with the use of bands like Bluetooth and the concept of bring-your-own-devices.
WMK-9	: Research on Key Techniques of The Non-contact Detection of Physiological Signals Based on Imaging Photoplethysmograpgy
Yuejin Zhao
Yuejin Zhao, Beijing Institute of Technology, China
Abstract: Imaging photoplethysmography (IPPG) is noncontact physiological signal detection technology based on the traditional photoplethysmography (PPG), which could achieve some specific cases of clinical and daily detection such as physiological signal detection with open wounds and motion state. IPPG technology with its non-contact measurement, low cost and easy operation, has become one research hotspot in the field of the instrument and biomedical engineering. At present, some important physiological parameters such as heart rate, respiration rate, oxygen saturation, heart rate variability, blood pressure etc, have been detected through IPPG technology by our research group.
WMM:
Silicon Technologies for mmWave Applications
David Harame, Ned Cahoon, Anirban Bandyopadhyay
Silicon technologies have made great strides and are now mainstream for most mmWave applications. They are pervasive in all but the higher power applications. The breadth of silicon technologies includes bulk RF CMOS, SiGe BiCMOS, Partially-Depleted (PD) RF SOI, and Fully-Depleted (FD) SOI. However, the market opportunity for silicon mmWave technologies has until recently been primarily relegated to lower volume wireless infrastructure and optical networking applications. With the push towards 5G standards at 28 GHz and above, broadband WTTx (Wireless-fiber-To-The-X) at 28 GHz, broadband satellite communications at Ku and Ka band, wireless backhaul at 60 GHz, licensed E-band at 71-76 GHz and 81-86 GHz, vehicular radar at 77 GHz, and photonics, many large volume opportunities have arrived. Designers are interested in understanding: 1) the current status of silicon technologies for mmWave, 2) innovations in models, design kits (DKs) and simulation/design tools, and 3) R&D and the transistor technology roadmap for the future. Designers need to know the impact of these technology developments on the performance and cost of mmWave circuits and systems. This workshop will explore these questions in detail . Our invited speakers will present a technology and argue for its merits against other technology choices given its status, roadmap, R&D, maturity and cost. Each section will include presentations on the technology, models, circuits and systems. After a brief introduction the workshop will have three sections: RFCMOS, SiGe BiCMOS, and RFSOI (PDSOI and FDSOI). Topics will include the following: analog versus digital, SOC with low power logic and integrated RF, partitioned systems with higher performance and more mature RF technologies, and low-cost bulk CMOS versus SOI and SiGe. The workshop will conclude with a panel of the technologists. Each panel member will advance their position and answer the question: "Has RF performance peaked in silicon technology?"
WMM-1	: An Overview of Silicon Technologies for mmWave Applications
Lawrence Larson
Lawrence Larson, Brown Univ.
Abstract: Emerging 5G standards will actively rely on silicon mmWave systems as an enabling technology. This talk will provide a brief system context for the use of silicon in mmW applications, with particular attention paid to technology tradeoffs.
WMM-2	: RF CMOS Technology for mmWave Applications
Peter Baumgartner
Peter Baumgartner, Intel
The increasing device performance of scaled bulk CMOS technologies (approaching 300GHz range for Ft and Fmax) has resulted in a wide usage of RFCMOS technologies, e.g. for cellular and connectivity applications. RFCMOS technologies are differentiated by enhanced device modeling, additional passive devices and improved metal stacks compared to their digital counterparts, but the device performance is typically a result from digital scaling. To cover additionally mmWave applications, it is important to understand how digital performance scaling (which is the driver for CMOS technologies) correlates to mmWave device performance. This correlation will be shown, based on scaling of physical device models. Based on this understanding and the CMOS technology roadmap and features, the best CMOS technologies can be selected. Trends and possible technology enhancements will also be discussed.
WMM-3	: RF CMOS Modelling
Christian Enz, EPFL Switzerland
This talk presents a simplified version of the charge-based BSIM6-EKV MOSFET compact model and shows how it can be used to assess different bulk CMOS technologies in terms of current efficiency and RF performance using just a few parameters. The concept of inversion coefficient IC is first introduced as an essential design parameter that spans the entire range of operating points from weak via moderate to strong inversion. It is then shown how several important figures-of-merit (FoM) including the current efficiency G_m/I_D , the transit frequency F_t, their product (G_m·F_t)/I_D and the minimum noise factor F_min can be expressed in terms of IC to capture the various trade-offs encountered in RF circuit design. It is then explained how short-channel effects, and mainly velocity saturation, have significantly slowed down the increase of F_t and degraded F_min in recent technology nodes. The simplicity of this IC-based model is emphasized by comparing it against measurements from a 40- and a 28-nm bulk CMOS processes and BSIM6 simulations. Finally, it is shown how this simplified model can be extended to FDSOI and FinFET and used for a fair comparison between bulk, FDSOI and FinFET.
WMM-4	: "No waves, no glory": The Renewal of RF CMOS for 5G mm-wave Applications
Michael Reiha
Michael Reiha, Nokia Networks
5G is the new era of networking that will expand upon the human possibilities of the connected world. Radio components that are both scalable (i.e., for mMIMO) and flexible (i.e., device integration) are key catalysts in realising low-latency, high-throughput networks. RF CMOS device scaling has provided a means to address cost-effective solutions, however, foreseeable 5G system requirements demand more beyond CMOS lateral scaling techniques. In this presentation, mm-wave RF CMOS devices, circuits and architectures will be examined, with an emphasis towards potential 5G systems applicability. Opportunities for technology enhancements will be discussed, while disseminating circuit design techniques that are amenable for the mm-wave connected world.
WMM-5	: High Performance SiGe HBT BiCMOS Technology
Holger Rucker
Holger Rucker, IHP
Advanced SiGe BiCMOS technologies offer today high-frequency SiGe HBTs with cut-off frequencies fT and fMAX beyond 300 GHz addressing a wide range of RF and mm-wave applications including high-data rate wired and wireless communications and radar for autonomous driving. Research results have demonstrated the potential for substantial further performance improvements of SiGe HBTs in future technology generations. SiGe HBTs with fT values of 500 GHz and fMAX values 700 GHz were realized recently. This talk will address performance perspectives and challenges for next generation SiGe BiCMOS technologies which integrate such HBTs with advanced CMOS nodes. We will discuss implications for existing applications in the 25, 60, and 77 GHz frequency bands and potential new application areas up to the lower THz range.
WMM-6	: High-Performance SiGe BiCMOS for Millimeter-Wave Applicationsations
Alvin Joseph
Alvin Joseph, GLOBALFOUNDRIES
The emergence of mmWave applications, like 5G and Satcom, has opened up opportunities for the high-performance SiGe BiCMOS technologies which provides a sweet spot for performance and integration. In this talk we will present the GLOBALFOUNDRIES 130nm / 90nm SiGe BiCMOS technology portfolio for building mmWave front-end blocks cost effectively and give exemplary circuit examples. We will look at the challenges for future bipolar scaling to address the needs for these mmWave applications.
WMM-7	: Compact HBT Modeling for mm- and sub-mm-wave Applications
Michael Schroeter
Michael Schroeter, Technical University of Dresden
This tuturial will start with a brief overview on the most relevant physical effects in high-speed SiGe HBTs. The associated compact formulations and their integration in an advanced compact model will be presented. Next, the procedure for an as independent as possible determination of the model parameters will discussed with emphasis on being able to generate physics-based geometry scalable large-signal compact models. Selected examples for extraction steps and related results as well as for a comparison between model and experimental data of SiGe HBTs fabricated in the most advanced process technology will be provided. In particular, combining a physics-based compact model with a geometry scalable parameter extraction enables a quantification of the impact of various physical effects on device performance as valuable feedback for process development. Further model verification will be demonstrated by comparing simulation and measured data of various mm-wave benchmark circuits. Finally, major issues faced in the future regarding reliable compact modeling, parameter extraction and measurement capability will be discussed.
WMM-8	: RF and Wideband Circuit Benchmarks in SiGe-BiCMOS
John Long
John Long, Univ. of Waterloo
Experimental results for RF and wideband benchmarking circuits fabricated in 0.13um and 90nm SiGe-BiCMOS technologies are presented. The circuits include: a 130 GHz-bandwidth feedback amplifier, 54-65 GHz power amplifier, DC-100GHz frequency multipliers and dividers, and wideband data modulators. Technology aspects related to passive and active components on-chip applicable to all silicon technologies are also described.
WMM-9	: Millimeter-Wave Circuit and System Capabilities and Trade-offs for SiGe BiCMOS
Brian Floyd, North Carolina State
This talk will highlight circuit and system capabilities for SiGe BiCMOS technology, for two specific case studies. First a W-band radar transceiver will be presented, and the key building blocks of the power amplifier, voltage-controlled oscillator, and mixer will be evaluated, together with technology aspects which result in improved performance. Second, millimeter-wave power amplifiers and transmit beamformers will be highlighted, together with design techniques which take advantage of the bipolar transistor to achieve high output power and high efficiency.
WMM-10	: RFSOI (PDSOI and FDSOI) Technology for mmWave Applications
David Harame
David Harame, GLOBALFOUNDRIES
SOI technology is a great platform for RF applications due to the low parasitics of the transistor. Cellular and WIFI switches are now pervasively built in large lithographic SOI technologies. 45nm PDSOI has been widely investigated for many mmWave applications for phased array systems. The ability to stack transistors in PD SOI greatly increases the power handling and enables switches and power amplifiers to be built using low voltage CMOS devices. Fully depleted SOI extends the performance to even higher levels with a HighK-MG gate stack, 22nm gate length, and a thin silicon channel. This talk will describe the technology aspects that make SOI well suited for RF mmWave applications.
WMM-11	: RFSOI (PDSOI and FDSOI) Compact Models
Josef Watts, Jean Charles Barbee
Josef Watts, Jean Charles Barbee, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, LETI, Germany
This presentation will briefly describe the structure and physics of partially depleted (PD), fully depleted (FD) and dynamically depleted (DD) SOI MOSFETs. The challenges and techniques of modelling each will then be discussed, with particular attention to the requirements for mmWave models. This will include all of the physical effects unique to SOI, including kink effect, self heating, non-quasistatic effects, body contacts, back gate modeling and substrate coupling. We will discuss the time constants associated with self heating and body effects. We describe the models for FEOL and BEOL line passives including lumped element passives such as varactors, resistors, capacitors, inductors and transformers as well as transmission lines components. We will also discuss the use of PCells, various choose for the PCell / PEX boundary and the incorporation of electromagnetic simulation into the design flow.
WMM-12	: RF and mm-Wave Design in FD-SOI CMOS Technologies
Sorin Voinigescu, U. of Toronto
WMM-13	: mmWave Transceiver Design in RF PD SOI CMOS
An overview of circuit design techniques and topologies for transceiver building blocks in deep sub-micron CMOS SOI will be presented. First, FET layout optimization considerations are given. Next, design examples of a 60GHz LNA, 24GHz VCO, 60GHz class-E PA, and a 60GHz t-line based phase shifter, all with state-of-the-art performance are provided. A fully-integrated 60 GHz transceiver in 32nm SOI CMOS, which integrates most of the above-mentioned building blocks, is presented to illustrate transceiver-level integration considerations. Finally, the challenges associated with process variability and test are outlined and examples of on-chip test and calibration techniques are given.
WMM-15	: Panel: Has RF Performance Peaked? Are the glory days behind us?
Larry Larson, Brown Univ.
Has RF performance peaked; Are the glory days behind us? This panel will discuss the current state of silicon mmWave technologies and if we are really gaining much in RF with scaling across all technologies. What is the best silicon technology for RF/mmWave and where are we now with performance and scaling?
WMN:
System Requirements and Technologies for Tunable Filters
Raafat Mansour, Xun Gong, Pierre Blondy
Univ. of Waterloo, South Florida University, Xlim - CNRS- Unversite De Liroges
Tunable RF and microwave filters are critical components in reconfigurable radios, radars and sensors. Over the past several years, a number of different technologies have been proposed to address this challenge with distinct advantages, drawbacks, maturity levels and market potentials. This workshop will review the state of the art in several of these technologies. The performance, requirements and market opportunities for tunable filters used in wireless systems will be discussed for both mobile applications (FBAR) and base station applications (high-Q filters). Speakers will address technologies such as ferroelectric BST, MEMS, Phase Change Materials (PCM) and active N-Path in the realization of tunable filters. Novel concepts for tunable fluidic filters, integrated reconfigurable filter/antennas and micro-machined filters will also be presented. Discussion of the opportunities presented by each technology will be included in relation to their relevant application space.
WMN-1	: Reconfigurable RF Front-end Modules for Mobile Applications
David Feld
David Feld, Broadcom
A wireless handset requires dozens of highly-selective narrow-band band-pass filters to couple signals that travel between the handset's Antenna port and transceiver IC. These filters comprise a large portion of the front-end circuit of the handset and they are typically incorporated into a discrete RF front-end module along with power amplifiers, switches, and control logic. At the present time, SAW, BAW, and FBAR filters are the only known technologies with sufficiently low insertion loss and steep filter skirts which are available in sufficiently small hermetic packages for use as filter elements in front-end modules. The demand to incorporate additional filter functions increases with each successive handset generation. It has been suggested that tunable filters could be used to replace groups of fixed filters to either reduce the size of the front-end modules or to enable more filtering function in a module with a given size. This would also help to reduce the total cost of the front-end circuit. There are, however, numerous monumental technical challenges that make continuously and discretely tunable SAW, BAW, and FBAR filters impractical for use in front-end modules of wireless handsets. A common front-end configuration comprises a bank of filters which are switched in and out one at a time. A reconfigurable filter could be used in place of this switched bank of filters. However, for this to be feasible, the reconfigurable filter would need both frequency and bandwidth tuning "knobs". To achieve this tunability, schemes have been proposed in which the frequency and kt2 of the constituent resonators of the filter are tuned in discrete steps. For example, banks of switched capacitors in series and in parallel with each resonator could be used for tuning; unfortunately, such banks of capacitors would significantly reduce the Q of the resonators, would occupy significant area and would reduce the power handling capability of a filter. Other schemes have been proposed in which the frequency of the constituent resonators is controlled by a dc voltage or magnetic field. Such devices have poor Q, don't have kt2 tunability, and are inherently non-linear, all of which are seriously performance limiting in the RF front-end. Another idea which has been proposed is to use an ultra-narrow tunable filter with steep filter skirts and a wide tuning range which could be tuned to a particular channel of interest. The problem with such a scheme is that modern 4G and LTE modulation protocols, require that the communication bandwidth vary from 0.2 MHz to more than 20 MHz and constructing a low insertion loss 20 MHz wide tunable filter with sharp filter skirts at GHz frequencies is unfeasible. The tunability problem is further exacerbated in the most recent handset generations where Carrier Aggregation (CA) functionality requires a handset to be capable of receiving multiple signals simultaneously. To enable CA functionality, a set of custom multiplexers is required. Each multiplexer: (1) is comprised of several filters which are attached to a single ANT port through a custom matching network and (2) must meet numerous RF specifications of the handset including not only the individual filter insertion loss, return loss, and isolation specs, but also a set of cross isolation specs between filters. Attempts to design a tunable version of a multiplexer comprising several tunable filters would be impractical because each tuned state of the multiplexer would need to comply with a different set of stringent spec requirements. Specifically, the fixed matching network will prevent the Tx and Rx ports of the multiplexer from having a tight "spot size" (return loss) over the full range of tuning, while the fixed cross couplings in the filter will prevent the precise frequency-placement of the poles and zeroes of filter function over the full range of tuning. Therefore, for the present and medium term, traditional filtering is the architecture of choice. As new bands and as new functionality such as 4-way MIMO are incorporated into RF front-ends, the number of filters per module will continue to increase. To respond to this pressure, technological innovation in piezoelectric filters must enable further reduction in filter size. A review of the evolution of this size scaling will be discussed as well as a discussion of module architectures which allow re-use of certain filters.
WMN-2	: Radio Frequency Tunable Filters: What are Possible and What are NOT?
Ken-ya Hashimoto
Ken-ya Hashimoto, Chiba University
In current mobile communication equipment, a large number of filters and duplexers using surface and bulk acoustic wave (SAW/BAW) technologies are used to support multi-band and multi-standard operation. The number does not seem to be saturated. The increase made the RF frontend so complex, and introduction of MIMO and CA accelerate this trend further. One possible solution to overcome this problem is giving tunability to such devices. For ultimate down-sizing, use of MEMS technologies is mandatory not only for realization of tunable passive components but also for their hetero-integration with SAW/BAW devices and/or RF ICs. This talk discusses tunable SAW/BAW devices using the MEM technology. It is shown what are possible and what are not by using this approach.
WMN-3	: CMOS N-Path Filters Tunable by a Digital Multi-Phase Clock
Eric Klumperink, Twente University
For Software Definied Radios and other reconfigurale RF front-ends, flexibly programmable high-Q bandpass filtering and frequency conversion is a challenge. High linearity and blocker tolerance is crucial for interference robustness. Passive switch-R-C circuits, also known as N-path filters or Frequency Translated filters, can implement the desired functionality. They can both offer tunable filter functionality, but also frequency conversion with built-in RF-filtering. N-path filters essentially realize a low-pass R-C or high-pass C-R function in baseband, which is frequency translated to a band-pass or noth filter. As passive switch-R-C networks are used, linearity can be good. Moreover, the frequency translation is controlled by a digital clock, allowing for flexibly programmable very wide tuning range covering more than an octave or even decade in frequency. The resulting N-path filter benefits from CMOS scaling as switch parasitics improve, and increasingly higher digital clock frequencies are feasible. This workshop contribution will review the developments in CMOS N-path filters over the last decade, highlighthing promising achieved results, while also discussing performance limitations and challenges.
WMN-4	: Advances in Tunable Networks Using RF MEMS
The talk will present the latest in RF MEMS tunable networks using the Cavendish RF MEMS varactors. Very high linearity and low loss tunable bandpass filters and notch filters in the 1-10 GHz region will be presented.
WMN-5	: Switchable and Tunable Ferroelectric Devices for Adaptive and Reconfigurable RF Circuits
Amir Mortazawi
Amir Mortazawi, Michigan University
Adaptive and reconfigurable radios that can change their frequency and mode of operation based on the unused/available wireless spectrum as well as their surrounding environmental conditions have been proposed to address such challenges. However, currently available RF and microwave circuit components cannot meet the performance requirements, and cost constraints necessary for the commercialization of such systems. This presentation is on the applications of ferroelectric thin film barium strontium titanate (BST), a low loss, high dielectric constant field dependent multifunctional material. The electric field dependence of BST has been employed to design tunable RF and microwave devices and components. Another important characteristic of BST is its DC electric field induced piezoelectric and electrostrictive effect. These properties are utilized to design intrinsically switchable film bulk acoustic wave resonators (FBARs) and FBAR filters. Switchable ferroelectric based filter banks can significantly reduce size and power consumption of conventional filter banks employed in multi-standard and frequency agile radios. Properties and performance of several BST based adaptive and reconfigurable RF circuits will be presented.
WMN-6	: Tunable and Fixed Filtering Solutions for Enhancing Dynamic Range and Flexibility of 4G-LTE Systems
Rafi Hershtig
Rafi Hershtig, K&L Microwave - Pole Zero
4G networks integrators are demanding multiple RF tests which require large dynamic range and versatility. The continuous evolving of LTE bands are presenting a challenge to the design engineers, in terms of multiple modulation bandwidth and wide band span from 700MHz to 6000MHz. For Passive Components in the High Power environment, such as; Antennas, Filters, Cables Couplers, etc. the first and foremost requirement driving the dynamic range level is the PIM. That is, Passive intermodulation product due to two 20W carriers in the transmit band producing products in the Receive band, is required to be in the order of -165dBc. For components in the mobile side, such as: Switches, Filters, F.E.M, Etc. The IMD level is obviously higher, but other tests such as; Carrier Aggregation, Load-Pull, Harmonics, Jammers induced and more, are being conducted. Here, the tunable filter approach, often digitally controlled for flexibility, is considered. This presentation attempts to put together new block diagrams based on tunable and/or fixed filters to provide large dynamic range and versatility. In short, a cost effective system that can measure across multiple LTE bands and that can be expanded in a "Plug and Play" style.
WMN-7	: Fully Reconfigurable Bandpass and Bandstop Filters
Dimitrios Peroulis, Purdue
While a plethora of center-frequency-tunable filters have been introduced over the last several years, transfer-function reconfiguration is significantly harder to achieve due to lack of appropriate architectures. New architectures are needed to address this need. It is the purpose of this talk to discuss such architectures that result in fully-reconfigurable bandpass and bandstop filters. Special attention will be paid to advanced topologies that enable reconfiguration of both poles and zeros of the filters. Besides single-band systems, multi-band reconfiguration techniques that allow independent control of each band will be reviewed. From a technology point of view, both planar and miniaturized cavity-based technologies will be discussed. Specifically, we will present proof-of-concept prototypes based on varactor-tuned microstrip resonators as well as tunable evanescent-mode cavity resonators. This talk will also briefly discuss the question of feedback versus open-loop control operation.
WMN-8	: Fluidic Microwave Reconfigurable and Tunable Circuits
Kamran Entesari
Kamran Entesari, Texas A&M
The first part of the talk is dedicated to reconfigurable Substrate-Integrated –Waveguide (SIW) filter and antenna structures and describes their tuning methodology and performance at microwave frequencies. The second part of the talk is dealing with design and implementation of tunable fluidic microwave filters and antennas, their advantages compared to other tuning techniques and their performance at microwave frequencies.
WMN-9	: Reconfigurable Filter/Antenna Systems
Xun Gong
Xun Gong, South Folrida University
This talk will present the recent development on reconfigurable filter/antenna and antenna arrays. The first part of the talk will focus on designing the microwave filter and antenna as an inseparable unit which can achieve compact size and high efficiency. Tuning mechanisms are introduced in this filter/antenna so that the center frequency can be tuned. Special efforts are made to maintain the impedance matching across the tuning range by considering the frequency-dependent coupling coefficient. Both planar and 3-D designs will be presented. The second part of the talk will focus on reconfigurable antenna arrays which exhibit wide frequency range, continuous frequency coverage and large instantaneous bandwidth.
WMN-10	: Use of MEMS and PCM-Based Switches in the Design of High-Q Tunable Filters
Raafat Mansour
Raafat Mansour, Univ. of Waterloo
Phase change materials (PCM) are of great interest as they exhibit a phase transition from a semiconductor state to metal state through either thermal or optical excitation. They exhibit resistivity changes of several order of magnitude as they change state exhibiting a thermal reversible transition such as Vanadium Oxides (VO2) or a thermal switchable-latching transition such as Germanium Telluride (GeTe). While such materials have been widely employed in optical applications, Only very recently, there have been extensive research efforts to use them in RF applications. In particular, PCM-based RF switches combine the low insertion loss performance of MEMS technology and the small size and reliability performance of semiconductor technology. This talk addresses the use of both MEMS and PCM-based switches in the development of high-Q tunable filters.
WMO:
Technologies for 5G Backhaul and Infrastructures
Telesphor Kamgaing, Vittorio Camarchia, Alberto Valdes-Garcia
Intel Corp., Politecnico di Torino, IBM
The next generation mobile communication standard (5G) is considered by many as a major advancement that will address a wide range of applications beyond personal mobile data access such internet of things (IoT) to vehicle to vehicle communications (V2V). The expected high demand in data traffic emanating from those emerging applications and the strong desire for immersive experiences, pose new challenges for the backhaul and networking infrastructure. Both sub-6 GHz and millimeter wave radio access technologies are widely mentioned as candidate solutions that will enable cell-to-cell or backhaul-to-infrastructure communication. This workshop brings together researchers from the academia and the industry to discuss both challenges and some recent advances in the area of the backhaul & mobile infrastructure. Each presenter will cover one or multiple aspects of the following topics: (1) Massive MIMOs and distributed/reconfigurable networks; (2) Power amplifiers and power efficient transceivers; (3) Applications of III-V technologies in base stations and backhaul infrastructure; (4) Transceivers for backhaul infrastructure; (5) Test and measurement challenges; (6) Coding and modulation schemes for high spectral efficiencies in the wireless backhaul of mobile access networks.
WMO-1	: Millimeter Wave Distribution Network and Architecture using Modular Antenna Arrays
Ali Sadri
Ali Sadri, Intel Corp.
One of the challenges of the future wireless networking systems is the delivery of the high throughout data connection to every cities, streets, and corner. While demand for data increases exponentially year after year, the distribution network to support such data demand is limited to the existing fiber and wireless connections. In this presentation we discuss how to provide high density connectivity as an extension to the fiber network utilizing mmWave modular antenna array systems and architecture. We discuss a flexible architecture that expands as the demand for network density increases.
WMO-2	: Silicon Enabled AESAs for 5G Backhaul and Infrastructure
Nitin Jain, David Coman
Nitin Jain, Anokiwave, Inc.
Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) systems are becoming a critical component for 5G backhaul and infrastructure applications. This workshop describes the challenges that these applications present, how highly integrated silicon RFICs can meet those challenges and provide the requisite beam steering, amplitude taper, low noise amplification, and transmit power functions to enable planar arrays at 28 GHz and 39 GHz. Imbedded in the RFICs are an array of features that provide a high level of system flexibility not previously achievable in commercial AESAs.
WMO-3	: MMIC Design for 5G Backhaul and Infrastructures: Challenges and Solutions
Maurizio Pagani, Huawei Technologies
Several radio concepts with the capability of providing a multi-gigabit transmission rate are currently investigated for 5G Access and Backhaul networks. Millimeter-wave communication is seen as one of the most promising key technologies, because of the wide spectrum available in this band. In order to be successful, High efficiency, high performance and low cost at mm-waves are required in the transceiver design, which poses several challenges for a MMIC design option. These technical challenges are discussed and some design solutions are presented which cover the frequency spectrum from Ka-Band to D-Band.
WMO-4	: Coding and Modulation Schemes for High Spectral Efficiencies in the Wireless Backhaul of Mobile Access Networks
Cesare Salvaneschi
Cesare Salvaneschi, Siae Microelettronica S.p.A.
The constant increase of data traffic on the mobile communication network is pushing the manufacturers of digital radio links employed in wireless backhaul to evolve their products following some main guidelines: the adoption of more and more complex and spectrally efficient modulation schemes, the implementation of more sophisticated frequency reuse methods (i.e. MIMO in conjunction with XPIC), and the extension of the used frequency range beyond the e-band, where wider channels are available. Every step in these three directions is a challenge for both the microwave engineers and the DSP designers: the latter are constantly called to improve the digital algorithms employed to face not only the radio propagation issues, but also, more and more frequently, the effects of the analog hardware imperfections. This presentation talks briefly about the 'state of the art' of the modulation and coding schemes employed in digital radio links, and gives an overview of how the RF impairments are faced in the digital processing world while the complexity and performances of the radio equipment grow.
WMO-5	: Circuits and System Solutions for the V, E and D-band Backhaul using III-V Technologies
Marcus Gavell
Marcus Gavell, Gotmic AB
The backhaul networks are headed for a big change for coping with the massive increase of data that 5G brings. Higher bandwidths, more complex modulation formats and higher output power put challenging requirements on the hardware for achieving higher data rates. Transmitter and receiver architectures may look quite different from today's line-up because of the tougher requirements on linearity, noise, efficiency and dynamic range. For the power amplifier in such equipment, the most critical parameters are output power and linearity to be able to use high modulation formats and higher output power for longer distance communications. Digital pre-distortion is nowadays common practice to linearize amplifiers at lower frequencies. Usually for microwave radios, this technique is implemented in the digital domain at the expense of increased bandwidth in the digital/analog converter (DAC). At mm-wave frequencies, when the signal channel bandwidth is much wider, the increased signal bandwidth used in the DAC will consume too high power, making this technique inappropriate to use for enhancing the radio performance. Analog pre-distortion of power amplifiers on the other hand can be implemented at mm-wave frequencies with little or no added power consumption to enhance the linearity. III-V technologies offer the best RF performance. GaAs High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) is the most used and established technology for mm-wave MMICs due to its satisfactory high frequency performance. The reliability, stable manufacturing, performance and pricing of GaAs are very competitive, which make this technology very attractive for commercial use. High bandgap materials such as GaN are emerging technologies that offer significantly higher output power and linearity and is a candidate for being the next generation's technology. We present the challenges on circuit design, system solutions and linearized PA design for the future frontends in the 5G backhaul networks using III-V technologies.
WMO-6	: Towards 5G: Power Amplifiers in Wireless Backhaul
Vittorio Camarchio, Roberto Quaglia, Marco Pirola
Vittorio Camarchio, Politecnico di Torino
The forthcoming 5 generation of mobile will strongly affect the whole network infrastructure, including the backhaul. Microwave and millimeter wave radios will be widely employed in future backhaul deployment. The power amplifier represents a crucial components in these radios, and it will probably need to shift its paradigm in terms of required power, bands, frequency, to cope with the new scenario. This talk will shortly introduce the present situation and the foreseen trends regarding the possible evolution of this fundamental block of the infrastructure.
WMO-7	: Silicon-based Transceiver Chipsets for 60 GHz and E-band P2P Links
Danny Elad
Danny Elad, IBM Haifa research lab
Next generation 5G backhaul infrastructures requires large uninterrupted bandwidth to support high capacity wireless communications. Both 60GHz and E-Band offer the required bandwidth under unlicensed/lightly-licensed regulation. Further enhancement of data throughput is achieved by increasing the modulation order limited by linearity and noise performance of the transceiver. We will review fully-integrated low cost fixed beam high-performance SiGe based transceiver chipsets for the full band between 57-66GHz, and for the upper and lower E-Band regions. Full duplex throughput is used to utilize the full potential of the band standards in a point-to-point configuration. Both designs were optimized for high modulation up to 256QAM and high power to support above 10Gbps while meeting outdoor regulation set by FCC and ETSI. In addition, a 60GHz phased array for PTP and point-to-multipoint applications will be presented. The phased array is in a TDD configuration with extremely high power / linearity performance and low noise.
WMO-8	: Modular BiCMOS 60-GHz Beamforming Solution for Scalable 5G Backhaul Networks
Minsu Ko, Dietmar Kissinger, Andrea Malignaggi, Jesus Gutierrez Teran, Ahmet Cagri Ulusoy
Minsu Ko, IHP
A modular beamforming architecture utilizing multiple beamforming ICs and a separate IQ modem IC is a very efficient solution for scalable 5G backhaul networks. The beamforming IC consists of amplifiers and vector modulators, and the modem IC includes up- and down-converters with an integrated PLL. The proposed solution is highly compact, and can be expanded in a modular fashion, making it suitable for communication in small-cell backhaul networks. In this presentation, IC development in 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS process as well as IC-/system-level characterization will be discussed.
WMB:
Digital-Intensive Wireless Transmitters for 4G/5G Broadband Mobile Communications
Rui Ma, SungWon Chung
Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Univ. of Southern California
Multiband multimode operation and massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) technology are essential to 4G/5G mobile communications. As an alternative to conventional RF/analog transmitters, all or almost-all digital transmitters are gaining increasing interests since they enable low-cost implementation in a compact form-factor for broadband and flexible operation. Conventionally, the implementations of digital transmitters and digital power amplifiers were mostly limited to silicon based technologies. In recent times, several new attempts using advanced signal processing techniques have been reported, with all-digital high-efficiency power amplifiers in compound semiconductors as well as in silicon. This workshop overviews these recent advancements on digital-intensive wireless transmitter R&D for both base-stations and mobile devices. The focus will be on the digital signal processing techniques and related digital-intensive transmitter circuits and architectures for advanced modulation, linearization, spur cancellation, high efficiency encoding, and parallel processing.
WMB-1	: Digital Transmitters for the Wireless Infrastructure
Andreas Wentzel, Thomas Hoffmann, Florian Hühn, Wolfgang Heinrich
Wolfgang Heinrich, Ferdinand-Braun-Institute (FBH), Berlin, Germany
In digital power amplifiers the analog signal is encoded in a pulse train and restored only at the output by a bandpass filter. In theory, this approach allows for PAs with high efficiency also at backoff, which has yet to be demonstrated in practice. Overall performance depends on the combination of coding/modulation, the PA circuit plus filter, and the resulting linearity behavior, which all differ significantly from the classical analog case. The presentation reviews the state of the art of such PAs targeting the wireless infrastructure. The key factors determining transmitter performance are discussed and recent results on novel modulation schemes and GaN PA with improved PAE are presented.
WMB-2	: Linear and Efficient Digital Transmitters for Future Mobile Communication
Shinichi Hori, Masaaki Tanio, Keiichi Motoi, Kazuaki Kunihiro
Shinichi Hori, NEC Corporation, Kanagawa, Japan
A single-bit digital transmitter, in which the RF digital stream including the wireless signal is generated and fed to the antenna after amplification and filtering, is a promising candidate for the next generation mobile communication systems since it offers high flexibility required for multi-mode/band transmitters. In addition, it has the great advantage to significantly improve power efficiency of the transmitter when a switch-mode power amplifier (SMPA) is employed at the final stage. In this talk, we introduce highly-efficient and –linear single-bit digital transmitters using envelope delta-sigma modulation architecture without full DPD and digital Doherty transmitters which enhances back-off efficiency by digitally controlling two SMPAs combined with each other in H-bridge configuration. Finally the future applications of digital transmitters, such as digital radio-over-fiber system or software-defined radio with FPGA-based all-digital transmitter will be presented.
WMB-3	: Advanced Power Encoding and Non-Contiguous Multi-Band Digital Transmitter Architectures
Rui Ma, SungWon Chung, Koon H. Teo, Philip Orlik
Rui Ma, SungWon Chung, Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Cambridge, MA, USA, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Multi-band multi-mode operation of 4G/5G broadband mobile communication creates several new design challenges to traditional RF transmitter architectures. For reconfigurable and flexible spectrum usage with compact and low-cost implementation, digital-intensive transmitter architectures have been recently proposed with high-efficiency power amplifiers in compound semiconductors. 4G/5G carrier aggregation, particularly non-contiguous multi-band transmission, demands staggering design requirements on bandwidth and linearity, which are difficult to manage with conventional digital modulation techniques such as pulse-width modulation (PWM) and delta-sigma modulation (DSM). In order to ovrecome these challenges of digital-intensive transmitters for non-contiguous multi-band transmission, we present advanced power encoding techniques, demonstrated with a proof-of-concept GaN HEMT Class-D digital outphasing RF power amplifiers. For broadband operation, the quantization noise of digital modulation often becomes performance bottleneck, consequently requiring high-order RF output filters with high insertion loss. We present novel out-of-band noise cancellation techniques for digital-intensive transmitters.
WMB-4	: All Digital Antenna Array Transmitter for Massive MIMO
Jose Vieira, Daniel Dinis
Jose Vieira, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
Massive MIMO systems are one of the key technologies for 5G. By using a large number of antennas, it is possible to increase the number of users with beamforming and optimize the channel capacity by using orthogonal signals. However, the cost of a transmitter with tens of antennas is usually very high and the implementations tend to be complex and bulky. Moreover, by using independent radios we have to deal with special synchronization hardware. In this talk we present some recent developments on all-digital transceivers that use several Multigabit Transceivers existent on medium-/high-performance FPGAs. We have built a proof of concept system using a single FPGA with 8 transmitting antennas, with a carrier frequency of 2.5GHz. The phase alignment of the antenna signals is performed on the baseband. This phase array antenna has a measured beam angle resolution below 1 degree. In this architecture, besides the FPGA we only need one filter for each channel, leading to a very compact and low-complexity solution when compared with other proposed systems. We also present an overview over several FPGA-based Delta Sigma Digital-to-Analog Converters with a larger bandwidth and higher flexibility that can be included into the same system. For the receiving part of the antenna array we also show some recent results on an all-digital 1-bit RF PWM analog to digital converter that is a good candidate to build a a complete All-Digital Antenna Array Transceiver Module that can be used for a diversity of different application scenarios: MIMO, Phased Array Systems, Radar Systems, etc.
WMB-5	: Digital Transmitter Architectures for Wireless Handsets – Trends, Opportunities and Challenges
Chih-Ming Hung
Chih-Ming Hung, MidiaTek, Taiwan
The continuing demand on power, performance and cost for wireless handsets has spurred immense research and development for digitally-intensive transceivers. Yet, the ever increasing data rate and frequency bandwidth exacerbate major challenges to realize digital transmitters suitable for every use scenario. A variety of architectures have been proposed to overcome the hurdles. This presentation will first review the trend of digital transmitter architectures. In light of the current and emerging wireless standards, new opportunities and obstacles will be discussed. The works to date represent a beginning of ongoing development for future-generation all-digital transmitters.
WMB-6	: 28GHz PAs and RF-DAC in UTBB 28nm FD-SOI CMOS for Massive MIMO systems
Markus Törmänen, Johan Wernehag, Henrik Sjöland, Andreas Axholt, Imad Din, Fenghao Mu, Henrik Fredriksson, Martin Anderson, Stefan Andersson
Markus Törmänen, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
Results from a project targeting mm-wave 5G transmitters are here presented. The focus in this workshop presentation is put on two 28GHz power amplifiers (PAs) and an RF-DAC, designed in an ultra-thin body and buried oxide (UTBB) fully depleted silicon on insulator (FD-SOI) 28nm CMOS technology process. The SOI technology enables stacked devices to be used in the PAs where back-gate biasing is utilized. Partially floating cascode gate performance on ACLR and EVM is also presented. Additionally, a 10-bit RF-DAC using a digital upsampling filter to achieve 1GHz RF bandwidth with more than 45dB SNDR is demonstrated.
WMB-7	: Capacitive-DAC based Transmitter Architectures: Modeling and Digital Pre-Processing
Mario Huemer, Stefan Trampitsch, Jovan Markovic, Harald Pretl
Mario Huemer, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria
The switched capacitor power amplifier (SCPA) or radio frequency (RF) capacitive digital-to-analog converter (C-DAC) combines the functionality of a mixer, a digital-to-analog converter, and a power amplifier (PA). The superior amplitude-to-amplitude (AM-AM) and amplitude-to-phase (AM-PM) linearity makes the SCPA attractive for implementations in mobile communication systems for latest communication standards such as Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) or Long Term Evolution (LTE). In this talk the principle idea of the C-DAC as a configurable capacitive voltage divider, which additionally performs the mixing operation in dependency of the applied LO carrier signal, will be introduced. Two different transmitter structures, the IQ C-DAC based architecture and the polar C-DAC based architecture will be discussed. The C-DAC consists of an array of switched-capacitor cells, where each cell ideally consists of a CMOS inverter and a capacitor. An ideal C-DAC is perfectly linear. However, non-ideal components, i.e. switch parasitics and variations of the capacitors in the cells, cause the C-DAC to become non-linear, and thus generate AM-AM and AM-PM distortions. In addition, imperfect power supply sources generate unwanted harmonics in the C-DAC's RF output signal. We present a switched non-linear state space model (SSM) which allows studying these effects with significantly reduced simulation run-time compared to circuit simulators. A comparison between the non-linear SSM, a transistor-level circuit model, and measurements on a 28 nm CMOS test chip is given for single tone as well as modulated LTE test signals. Furthermore, we will discuss digital pre-distortion concepts to improve the spectral regrowth behavior and the error vector magnitude (EVM) of an IQ C-DAC based architecture. The approaches have been validated using the non-linear SSM as well as circuit level simulations, and by measurements with the 28 nm CMOS test chip.
WMB-8	: Encoding Mobile Communication Signals for Switch-Mode Systems
Daniel Markert
Daniel Markert, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Bavaria, Germany
The central challenge of all-digital transmitters is the representation of the wanted RF signal by digital pulse patterns. This talk gives an overview over various encoding methods starting with analog time-continuous RF pulse-width-modulation up to a purely digital FPGA-based approach suited for Massive-MIMO systems. The FPGA-based system is capable of meeting the linearity requirements for modern mobile communication systems using individual multi-gigabit-transceiver ports. This is achieved thanks to an advanced combination of PWM and DSM preprocessing and a dedicated calibration algorithm. All presented concepts are evaluated based on simulations and measurements with focus on coding efficiency, signal quality and spectral emissions.
WMD:
Flexible Devices, Circuits and Systems Solutions to RF and mmW Front-Ends for 5G Cellular Communications
Eric Kerherve, Vincent Knopik
Univ. of Bordeaux, STMicroelectronics
The continuing growth in demand for high data rate is driving the 5G cellular communications. These communications need to be flexible enough to accommodate all the present and future diverse uses. Available millimeter-wave bands are able to respond to the increasing data traffic, since new technologies and innovative circuit topologies can offer system flexibility. Another critical challenge for the future 5G is the output power over a large frequency range keeping high linearity - to address complex modulation schemes - and low cost requirement. This asks for other complex solution, implementing beam forming networks for instance, with their advantage on spectral flexibility but practical constraint on the front end circuit itself. In this workshop, academic and industry experts will focus on flexible devices, circuits and systems solutions used or imagined in different RF and mmW front-ends, that would pave the way for next 5G cellular communications.
WMD-1	: Self-contained Power Amplifier : How to Think Multiple PA Networks for Beam Forming 5G Applications?
Vincent Knopik, Boris Moret, Eric Kerherve
Vincent Knopik, STMicroelectronics
Future 5G standard at higher frequencies will ask for complex modulation scheme and antenna network to provide the requested high data rate. One of the solutions is to use beam forming to share the information over a huge number of elementary cells and propagate the total signal thanks to the antenna network. To do this, we need to ensure that all the front ends will perform in parallel. This represents a very interesting challenge. Indeed, the beam forming will be efficient if each of the elementary cells maintains its nominal "average" performance. This presentation will focus on a new approach of the PA design, to target this point. Particularly, we are focusing in a self-contained behavior of the PA, that allows it to tune and sense its performances regarding its environment, its own behavior, and the other PA ones. Even if this challenge will probably ask to reduce a little the state of the art performance, it would definitely warranty the final network one.
WMD-2	: Dynamically Changing mm-wave Circuits for Next Generation mm-wave Systems
Ali Hajimiri, CALTECH
Despite their great potentials, the use of mm-wave devices has been limited by the precision required in their implementation. In this talk we discuss several examples of how the dynamic reconfigurability of such system can lead to improved performance, robustness, and added functionality. We will discuss several examples such as dynamic polarization control and self-healing circuits.
WMD-3	: Circuit and System Architectures for High Data Rate Wireless Backhaul
This presentation will explore fully digital architectures and circuit topologies for future wireless backhaul systems with aggregate data rates comparable to those of future 64Gbaud fiberoptic systems. Potential circuit topologies in 45nm SOI CMOS, 55nm and 28nm FDSOI SiGe BiCMOS will be reviewed along with measurements of digital transmitters with free space constellation formation at 100 GHz and 140 GHz. Predistortion and spectral shaping techniques in the transmitter, and receiver ADC-based equalization at 64 GBaud will also be discussed.
WMD-4	: Highly Efficient 5G PA Design: Exciting Challenges and Opportunities
Donald Lie
Donald Lie, Texas Tech Univ.
It is estimated that billions of silicon-based RF power amplifiers (PAs) are already in RF front end modules (FEMs) for 3G/4G handsets, WLAN, and other wireless applications today. The III-V semiconductor-based RF PAs, however, can still offer superior frequency and breakdown performance with higher output power (POUT) and power-added-efficiency (PAE) and faster time-to-market, but silicon-based RF PAs do have the advantages in offering higher monolithic integration with added functionalities (e.g., flexible on-chip digital control and selection on power level, modulation schemes, frequency bands, adaptive matching, predistortion, etc.), which can translate into lower cost and smaller sizes attractive for broadband multi-mode multi-band handset transmitters. The advancement from 4G into 5G will for sure increase the complexity for PA design, as the higher RF signal modulation bandwidth (e.g., 250/500MHz and above 1 GHz) for transmitters, stringent linearity and efficiency requirements at cm-Wave and mm-Wave carrier frequencies (e.g., 15/28/38/45/60/73 GHz), multiple antennas for beamforming and massive MIMO, etc. will be particularly challenging for both 5G PA design and testing. The peak the multiple carriers and clusters may result in more challenging waveforms with high peak-to-average-power-ratio (PAPR) for transmitters. The greater numbers of the supported bands, MIMO antennas and 5G small cells will require many more RF PAs and make the high PAE performance and low-cost particularly attractive; and the significantly reduced 5G PA peak POUT requirements appear to be favorable for silicon-based PAs implementation. Therefore, some potentially key design techniques for high-efficiency 5G broadband wireless PA design will be discussed in this talk. The design and testing challenges ahead for highly efficient linear wideband RF/mm-Wave PA are particularly serious for 5G applications, especially for mm-Wave and massive MIMO-like scenarios. I will try to address in this talk why some these very difficult challenges can, with or without the high-performance GaN/GaAs PA, also present as golden opportunities and great incentives for silicon PA development and advancement in market segments.
WMD-5	: Phased Array Antenna System (PAS) for 5G Cellular Communications
Hiroshi Okasaki
Hiroshi Okasaki, NTT DOCOMO
Achieving a very high bit rate up to multi tens of gigabits per second is one of the goals of fifth generation (5G) mobile communication networks. Higher frequency bands such as millimeter-wave band are identified as a promising avenue because they will provide a contiguous broadband spectrum. To utilize the higher frequency bands, phased array antenna systems with high antenna gain and beam-forming capability will be a key technology. This presentation reviews several schemes to control antenna beam direction on a phased array antenna system for 5G utilization, and introduces the recent research results at NTT DOCOMO laboratories.
WMF:
High Power WPT
Alessandra Costanzo, Zoya Popovic
Univ. di Bologna, Univ. of Colorado
High power WPT is a key technology, gaining an increasing interest from many industrial sectors: from automotive, for EV charging "on the move", to complex distributed industrial plants, located in harsh environments, for simultaneous powering movable parts and sensing and data transfer. The most common operating frequency is in the range of few hundreds of KHz, but now there are emerging solutions in the MHz range, thanks to the device technology evolution. This half-day workshop will present some of the latest results, addressing both theory and system aspects down to the circuit-level perspective, from few Watts up to few KWatt considering the electromagnetic safety issue. Applications for transportation and large industrial plants are presented by the speakers coming from four different continents.
WMF-1	: A System for Dynamic Inductive Power Supply of Electric Vehicles on the Road
Johannes Russer, Peter Russer
Johannes Russer, TUM, Munich
A moving field inductive power transfer (MFIPT) system for supplying power to electric vehicles while driving along the route is described. This MFIPT system uses primary coils arranged below the pavement. The primary coils transmit the energy via an alternating magnetic field to a secondary coil located at the vehicle below its floor. Only those primary coils located below the secondary coil of a vehicle are excited. By this way losses and radiation in the environment are minimized. The operation principle of the moving field inductive power transfer system is based on a switched DC-to-DC converter which converts the DC power supplied by the stationary power line to DC power delivered to the moving electric vehicle. The dynamics, the operating regimes and the power balance of the moving field inductive power transfer system and the costs for the implementation of the system are discussed. The contactless power supply of electric vehicles on highways makes it possible to get along with battery capacities otherwise suitable only for shorter range. The batteries are used only in local traffic and on side roads where no moving field inductive power transfer system is installed. In areas where there are no inductive supply roads available, the inductive energy transmission system may still be used in stationary charging stations. Since only the primary coils below the vehicles are activated, high efficiency is achieved and the magnetic field is shielded against the environment. The MFIPT system is especially interesting for intelligent autonomous electric vehicles. In transportation systems based on this combination the electric vehicles will exchange information with traffic management systems and with each other and thereby achieve a steady, energy-efficient traffic flow even at very high vehicle densities.
WMF-2	: Industrial Solutions using IPT
Grant Covic
Grant Covic, Univ. of Auckland, New Zealand
The ability to provide power without wires was imagined over a century ago, but assumed commercially impractical and impossible to realise. However for more than two decades the University of Auckland has been at the forefront of developing and commercialising this technology alongside its industrial partners. This research has proven that significant wireless power can be transferred over relatively large air-gaps efficiently and robustly. Early solutions were applied in industrial applications to power moving vehicles in clean room systems, roadway lighting, industrial plants, and in theme parks, but more recently this research has helped develop technology that has the ability to impact us directly at home. The seminar will describe some of the early motivations behind this research, and introduce some of the solutions which have been developed by the team of researchers at Auckland over two decades, many of which have found their way into the market. It will also describe how the technology has recently been re-developed and is evolving to enable battery charging of electric vehicles without the need to plug in, and alongside this how it has the potential to change the way we drive in the future.
WMF-3	: Electromagnetic Safety of High-power Wireless Power Transfer System for Transportation
Seungyoung Ahn
Seungyoung Ahn, Graduate School of Green Transportation, KAIST
Wireless power transfer (WPT) is one of the most promising technologies in recent years, and the transportation systems with WPT technology are expected to create huge market in near future. As the transportation systems require high power over kilo-watt, the design should be differentiated from low power WPT systems. As the magnetic field strength is much larger than any other electronic system, the electromagnetic safety issue becomes crucial especially in railway WPT system where mega-watt of power is required. In this talk, wireless power transfer systems in vehicular applications and recent researches on electromagnetic safety for these high power WPT systems are introduced. Transmitting and receiving coil design, magnetic field shaping, and resonant reactive shield to minimize the leakage magnetic field in high-power low-frequency magnetic resonant WPT system are explained and related issues on standardization and commercialization are discussed.
WMF-4	: High Efficiency Soft Switched Inverters and Rectifiers for Mid Range IPT
Paul Mitcheson
Paul Mitcheson, Imperial College London
Maximum link efficiency for mid range IPT systems often requires the system to operate at several MHz. This means significant challenges in the design of the electronics that drives the transmit coil and for the rectifier on the receiving coil. Achieving high power handling capability and efficiency at MHz frequencies is difficult with silicon devices and so this is an application where GaN and SiC transistors are especially well suited. A further requirement for high efficiency is the need to for the circuits to be soft switched and to be tolerant to changes in the geometry of the magnetic link. In this talk I will describe soft switched topologies suitable for high efficiency across a range of magnetic links, that reduce the stresses on the components and have minimal requirements for closed loop control bandwidth. The circuits are particularly suitable for ensuring ICNIRP regulations are met, even as the magnetic link geometry changes.
WMF-5	: Design Considerations for High-Power Large-Gap Capacitive Wireless Power Transfer Systems
Khurram Afridi, Zoya Popovic
Khurram Afridi, University of Colorado, Boulder
Inductive wireless power transfer (WPT) systems have traditionally been used for high-power large-gap near-field applications, such as electric vehicle (EV) charging. However, capacitive WPT systems can potentially be more efficient and less expensive as they do not require ferrite materials for flux guidance. This presentation addresses the design challenges and the tradeoffs associated with the design of a multi-modular capacitive WPT system suitable for stationary and in-motion EV charging. The system utilizes relative phasing of the different modules to achieve near-field field-focusing and hence maintains fringe fields within safety limits. The WPT system also requires matching networks that provide large voltage or current gain and reactive compensation. An analytical optimization approach for the design of L-section multistage matching networks is developed and utilized to maximize the matching network efficiency. The results of the proposed approach are validated using a 12-cm air-gap 6.78-MHz capacitive WPT system.
WMF-6	: Near-field K-Watt Wireless Power Transfer Controlled by Passive Sensing
Riccardo Trevisan, Alessandra Costanzo
Alessandra Costanzo, DEI-University of Bologna, Italy
A nonconventional exploitation of a self-resonant near-field link at UHF for data communication, is combined in a compact inductive wireless power transfer system. At LF, the inductive channel is designed to deliver up to 1.3 kW to a resistive rotary heater. At UHF, sensing capabilities are made possible by exploiting self-resonant structures, such as split-ring resonators, one at each far-end side of the link. This network is used in a passive sensing system, to convert the data of a remote temperature sensor, representing the system variable load. The reflected power variations at the transmitter side, due to the dc load variations, are successfully used to perform the sensor readout.
TU1E:
Multiscale and Multiphysics Modeling for RF, Microwave, Terahertz and Optical Applications
Zhizhang Chen
Chair organization:
Co-chair:
Co-chair organization:
Univ. of Toronto
Circuit and practical electromagnetic structures, even a simple printed-circuit-board (PCB), may contain electrically complex structures as well as multi-physics effects (e.g. thermal, quantum) that interact with electromagnetic fields. Simulation and optimization of these structures requires special mathematical and numerical treatment, namely multiscale and/or multiphysics modeling. They often pose great challenges because of the complex and interdisciplinary nature of the subject. More specifically, the multiphysics interactions and multiscale computations in time and space have to be addressed in order to have reliable and accurate numerical simulation and optimization results. This focus session is intended to address the emerging issues of the multiphysics and multiscale modeling and optimization that pertain to RF, microwave, terahertz and optical circuits and structures.
TU1E-1	: A Self-Consistent Integral Equation Framework for Simulating Optically-Active Media
Connor Glosser, Carlo Piermarocchi, Balasubramaniam Shanker
Balasubramaniam Shanker, Michigan State Univ., United States
(8:00 - 8:20 )
Here we consider a disordered system of interacting quantum dots—nanostructures with applicability in systems ranging from quantum computing to next-generation displays. Quantum dots facilitate absorptive and emissive processes at frequencies over timescales independent of those in the incident radiation; by treating the system semiclassically we maintain the discrete dynamics inherent to quantum objects without resorting to second quantization to describe electromagnetic fields. Our solution proceeds via determination of source wavefunctions through evolution of the differential Liouville equations and evaluation of radiation patterns through integral equation techniques. We employ a highly-tuned predictor-corrector integration scheme to advance the source wavefunctions in time; the polarizations that arise then serve as sources within the integral equations that we use to propagate the field. This coupled solution produces a description of both the quantum and electromagnetic dynamics at each timestep giving rise to lasing effects, non-linear propagation, coupled Rabi oscillations, and other optical phenomena.
TU1E-2	: An Efficient Algorithm for Simulation of Plasma Beam High-Power Microwave Sources
Dong-Yeop Na, Fernando Teixeira, Yuri Omelchenko
Dong-Yeop Na, Ohio State Univ., United States
We discuss a new electromagnetic particle-in-cell algorithm for the simulation of Maxwell-Vlasov equations on unstructured grids. The use of discrete exterior calculus and differential forms of various degrees enables numerical charge conservation from first principles, down to the numerical precision floor. In addition, energy conservation is obtained via a symplectic field update. The algorithm is illustrated for the modeling of high-power microwave devices based on Cerenkov radiation driven by relativistic plasma beams.
TU1E-3	: Supercomputing-Enabled First-Principles Analysis of Wireless Channels in Real-World Environments
Yang Shao, Zhen Peng
Yang Shao, Univ. of New Mexico, United States
Wireless communications are expected to take place in increasingly complicated scenarios, such as dense urban, forest, tunnel and other significant cluttered environments. A key challenge emerging is to understand the physics and characteristics of wireless channels in complex environments, which are critical for the analysis, design, and application of future mobile and wireless communication systems. The objective of this work is to investigate high-resolution, high-performance computational algorithms for extreme-scale channel modeling in real-world environments. The system-level large scene analysis is enabled by the novel, ultra-parallel algorithms on the emerging exascale high-performance computing (HPC) platforms. The results lead to much greater channel model resolution than existing deterministic channel modeling technologies. All relevant propagation mechanisms are accounted for in first-principles. Such a modeling framework will be critical to gaining fundamental physics of wireless propagation channels in real-world scenarios.
TU1E-4	: 3D Unconditionally Stable FDTD Modeling of Micromagnetics and Electrodynamics
Zhi Yao, Yuanxun Ethan Wang
Zhi Yao, Univ. of California, Los Angeles, United States
A rigorous yet computationally efficient three-dimensional nu-merical method has been proposed based on modified alternat-ing-direction-implicit (ADI) finite difference time domain meth-ods (FDTD) and it has the capability of modeling the eccentric property of magnetic material being anisotropic, dispersive or nonlinear. The proposed algorithm solves Maxwell's equations and LLG equations simultaneously, requiring only tridiagonal matrix inversion as in ADI FDTD. The accuracy of the modeling has been validated by the simulated dispersive permeability of a continuous ferrite film with a 1.5 um-thickness, using a time-step size 104 times larger than the Courant limit. The permeability agrees with the theoretical prediction and magneto-static spin wave modes are observed. Moreover, electric current sheet radia-tors close to perfect electrical conductors loaded with 2 um-thick ferrite films are simulated, which exhibit a radiation efficiency 20dB higher than conventional dipole antennas on the same scale.
TU1E-5	: Two-Dimensional Multiphysics Model of Microwave Sintering
Erin Kiley, Vadim Yakovlev
Erin Kiley, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, United States
Recently, keen interest has been shown in using microwaves as the heat source for materials manufacturing processes that rely on sintering. We present here a two-dimensional model of microwave sintering that accounts for the chain of physical phenomena that influence the process (i.e., electromagnetics, heat transfer and mechanical deformation), including the dependence of dielectric and thermal properties on the temperature and relative density of the sample. The model relies on finite difference methods for the electromagnetic and thermal models, and a Master Sintering Curve to construct the inverse function for density evolution, and is presented together with its computer implementation as a series of Python scripts, which runs quickly and whose accuracy is demonstrated via comparison to experimental results from literature.
TU1F:
Broadband and Millimeter-Wave Power Amplifiers
Charles Campbell
QORVO, Inc.
Zoya Popovic
Univ. of Colorado
Broadband amplifiers with bandwidths over an octave to over a decade and implemented in InP, CMOS, GaN, and GaAs are presented. A millimeter-wave W-band PA using a novel tri-gate technology with over 1W of output power is presented.
TU1F-1	: A 1.5–88 GHz 19.5 dBm Output Power Triple Stacked HBT InP Distributed Amplifier
Duy Nguyen, Alexander Stameroff, Anh-Vu Pham
Duy Nguyen, Univ. of California, Davis, United States
We demonstrate a wideband and high power distributed amplifier (DA) using an 0.5 μm indium phosphide (InP) double heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) process. For the first time, a triple stack HBT topology is used in an InP DA to achieve high power and high linearity. The 1.2 mm x 0.75 mm fabricated chip exhibits a measured gain of 16 dB, maximum output power of 19.5 dBm and output third order intercept point (OIP3) of 27.5 dBm. The bandwidth covers 1.5 – 88 GHz. This makes the gain-bandwidth product (GBP) 546 GHz. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this work reports the highest output power and OIP3 over a wide bandwidth among all published distributed amplifiers to date.
TU1F-2	: A 4–10 GHz Fully-Integrated Stacked GaAs pHEMT Power Amplifier
Haifeng Wu, Xuejie Liao, Cetian Wang, Yijun Chen, Yunan Hua, Liulin Hu, Jiping Lv, Wei Tong
Haifeng Wu, Chengdu Ganide Technology, China
A 410 GHz fully-integrated power amplifier (PA) is demonstrated using a 0.15-μm GaAs pHEMT process. This PA employs a compact structure with 4-parallel 3-stacked-FET cells to obtain a broadband power performance within a very small chip size. The measurement results of this PA in the frequency range of 410 GHz show a gain flatness of 13.5±1.5 dB, a maximum input return loss (S11) of -9 dB, a maximum output return loss (S22) of -7 dB, and a 3537 dBm output power with the corresponding power added efficiency (PAE) of 2532%. To the author's knowledge, this is the first GaAs PA ever reported which covers the frequency range of 410 GHz and achieves the combination of output power and instantaneous broadband performance within a chip size of 1.6mm×1.6 mm.
TU1F-3	: Efficient 2–16 GHz Flat-Gain Stacked Distributed Power Amplifier in 0.13 um CMOS Using Uniform Distributed Topology
Mohsin Tarar, Thomas Buecher, Saad Qayyum, Renato Negra
Saad Qayyum, RWTH Aachen Univ.
This work presents the design and implementation of a flat-gain, efficient and wideband stacked distributed power amplifier (SDPA) in 0.13 µm CMOS technology. To get high output swing along with a reasonable gain, a four-transistor stack is utilized in four sections. Voltage alignment at the drain of each device in the stack is obtained by allowing a small AC swing at the gate by voltage division between Cgs and the external gate capacitor. Interstage matching is performed through peaking inductors. Further, the uniform distributed amplifier topology is adopted to control the impedance at each current injecting node from the stack to the artificial drain lines resulting into flat gain. Measured results show at least 10 ± 0.3dB small-signal gain from 2-16 GHz. The SDPA demonstrated a saturated output power of 18 dBm with peak efficiency of 17% and an OIP3 of 22 dBm occupying an area of 0.83 mm2.
TU1F-4	: A K-Band Transformer Based Power Amplifier With 24.4-dBm Output Power and 28% PAE in 90-nm CMOS Technology
Jung-Lin Lin, Yu-Hsuan Lin, Yuan-Hung Hsiao, Huei Wang
Jung-Lin Lin, National Taiwan Univ., Taiwan
A fully integrated K-band transformer based power amplifier with neutralization technique is proposed and fabricated in 90-nm CMOS technology. Several cascode cells are combined together as differential power cells. On-chip transformers and current combing topology are used to combine amplifiers as well as to reduce the problem of output power loss. In order to improve the overall stability, neutralization structure is utilized in the combined cascode cell. The measurement result demonstrates 14.1-dB small-signal gain, saturated power (Psat) of 24.4 dBm, and output 1-dB compression point (OP1dB) of 21.7 dBm at 24 GHz. The peak power added efficiency (PAE) achieved by this PA at 24 GHz is 28%. The chip size is 0.526 mm2 with all pads. To the authors' knowledge, this circuit presents a superior power and efficiency performance compared with the reported K-band CMOS PAs.
TU1F-5	: First Demonstration of W-Band Tri-Gate GaN-HEMT Power Amplifier MMIC With 30 dBm Output Power
Erdin Ture, Peter Brückner, Mohamed Alsharef, Ralf Granzner, Frank Schwierz, Rüdiger Quay, Oliver Ambacher
Erdin Ture, Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics, Germany
First-ever realization of a W-band power amplifier (PA) millimeter-wave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) utilizing GaN-based Tri-gate high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) is presented in this paper. Superior device- and circuit-level performances over conventional GaN HEMTs are proven to be empowered through implementation of the novel Tri-gate topology which exhibits a 3-dimensional gate profile. The measurements of the fabricated MMIC yield up to 30.6 dBm (1.15 W) of output power in the frequency range 86–94 GHz with 8% power-added-efficiency (PAE) and more than 12 dB transducer power gain. The achieved results demonstrate the promising potential of Tri-gate GaN technology towards high-performance millimeter-wave PA designs.
TU1G:
3D Printed Waveguides and Packages
Telesphor Kamgaing
Univ. of South Florida
This session will include recent advances in 3D printed waveguides up to W-bands as well as well as additively manufactured MMIC packages and on-chip interconnects.
TU1G-1	: MMIC Packaging and On-Chip Low-Loss Lateral Interconnection Using Additive Manufacturing and Laser Machining
Ramiro Ramirez, Di Lan, Jing Wang, Tom Weller
Ramiro Ramirez, Univ. of South Florida, United States
A new and versatile 3D printed on-chip integration approach with laser machining is demonstrated in this paper for microwave and mm-wave systems . The integration process extends interconnects laterally from a MMIC to a chip carrier. Laser machining techniques are studied and characterized to enhance the 3D printing quality. Specifically, the width of micro-dispensed printed traces is accurately controlled within micrometer range and probe pads are formed by laser cutting to facilitate RF measurement. S-parameters of a distributed amplifier integrated into the package are simulated and measured from 2 to 30 GHz. The overall performance is significantly better than traditional wirebonded QFN package. The attenuation of the microstrip line including interconnects is only 0.2 dB/mm at 20 GHz and return loss with the package is less than 10 dB throughout the operating frequency band
TU1G-2	: Rapid Prototyping of Low Loss 3D Printed Waveguides for Millimeter-Wave Applications
Junyu Shen, Michael Aiken, Morteza Abbasi, Dishit Parekh, Xin Zhao, Michael Dickey, David Ricketts
Junyu Shen, North Carolina State Univ., United States
This paper proposes a rapid-prototyping method for low-loss millimeter-wave hollow waveguides using 3D printing technology. Waveguide models are modified to enhance their mechanical strength, 3D printed with a light-weight photopolymer using a Digital Light Projection (DLP) method. A modified version of copper electroless plating is then used for metallization to achieve very low loss at millimeter waves. To demonstrate, 3D printed waveguides are fabricated for W-band and D-band. The measured insertion loss is between 0.12 dB/in to 0.25 dB/in over the entire W-band, as the best loss performance when compared reported W-band 3D printed waveguides, to the best of authors' knowledge, and between 0.26 dB/in to 1.01 dB/in over the entire D-band. These results are comparable to commercially-available metal waveguides and show great promise for manufacturing more complex geometries with this technique.
TU1G-3	: Selective Laser Melting Aluminum Waveguide Attenuation at K-Band
Michael Hollenbeck, Karl Warnick, Clinton Cathey, Janos Opra, Robert Smith
Michael Hollenbeck, Optisys, United States
Additive manufacturing allows for fabrication of complex structures that efficiently use a 3D volume of space. Current state of the art metal additive manufacturing methods, particularly Selective Laser Melting (SLM), allow for intricate parts with high mechanical strength but at the cost of increased surface roughness on internal walls. This paper investigates the contribution to loss of the increased surface roughness on a set of SLM WR42 waveguides printed with a standard ALSi10Mg aluminum powder, and compares their attenuation performance to purchased single-piece WR42 waveguides and to an industry-standard method for CNC machining waveguide multi-piece assemblies. Single-piece construction of RF parts produces lower attenuation than multi-piece assembly, and lower surface roughness directly leads to lower attenuation. SLM RF waveguides had better part consistency and comparable or better attenuation compared to CNC waveguides, showing that SLM has reached the point where it can be used in RF waveguide assemblies.
TU1G-4	: Integration of RF Functionalities in Microwave Waveguide Components Through 3D Metal Printing
Oscar Peverini, Mauro Lumia, Giuseppe Addamo, Flaviana Calignano, Giuseppe Virone, Elisa Ambrosio, Diego Manfredi, Riccardo Tascone
Mauro Lumia, National Research Council of Italy, Italy
This work reports on the integration of RF functionalities in microwave waveguide components through the selective laser melting process. A specific integrated component has been developed for the relevant application domain of satellite communications. The component operates in the Ku-K bands and integrates a H-plane bend, a 90-deg twist and ninth-order pass-band filter. The AlSi10Mg prototype manufactured through selective laser melting exhibits significant RF performances (return loss > 20 dB, insertion loss < 0.23 dB, and rejection > 60 dB), while significantly minimizing mass, envelope and mechanical complexity.
TU1G-5	: Additive Manufactured W-Band Waveguide Components
Mike Coffey, Shane Verploegh, Stefan Edstaller, Erich Grossman, Shawn Armstrong, Zoya Popovic
Mike Coffey, Univ. of Colorado, United States
This paper presents several W-band (75-110 GHz) WR-10 waveguide components fabricated using both direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) and stereolithography (SLA), in aluminum, nickel and copper alloys and metal-coated plastic (MCP). The RF performance and surface roughness are measured, and the loss due to surface roughness quantified. The measured loss at 95 GHz ranges from 0.055 dB/cm for the copper-plated plastic waveguides to 0.37 dB/cm for the nickel alloy. From a loss budget study, it is found that standard models do not accurately predict loss due to surface roughness for very rough surfaces. This paper presents the current state-of-the-art in available additive manufactured (AM) waveguide components at W-band.
TU1H:
Recent Advances in Radar Systems Technology
Arne Jacob
Technical Univ. of Hamburg
Chris Rodenbeck
Topics include recent advances in Doppler radar along with enhanced construction of W-band technology. Applications like particle detection, snow pack remote sensing and integration of communications with radar will be highlighted.
TU1H-1	: Obstacle-Free Particle Measurement With a Bistatic CW-Radar
Alwin Reinhardt, Alexander Teplyuk, Hendrik Brüns, Michael Höft, Ludger Klinkenbusch
Alwin Reinhardt, Univ. of Kiel, Germany
This paper compares two radar configurations with different antenna systems for measuring particle streams in the near field range. A complex source beam is employed to describe the field characteristics. This new approach is used to derive the associated antenna gain and power patterns and applied in the radar equation for particle streams. We demonstrate how indoor measurements benefit from a bistatic radar configuration and provide measurement results for streams with particles in the micron range.
TU1H-2	: 77-GHz Active Quasi-Circulator Based Doppler Radar With Phase Evaluation for Object Tracking
Matthias Porranzl, Christoph Wagner, Herbert Jaeger, Andreas Stelzer
Matthias Porranzl, Johannes Kepler Univ. Linz, Austria
A 77-GHz Doppler shift radar is demonstrated based on an Active Quasi-Circulator (QC) monostatic approach. The QC system includes a leakage canceler as well as a modulator for time division IQ switching. A flexible decimation chain, implemented in an FPGA, facilitates the use of a low cost ADC with poor SNR performance. By analyzing the drift behavior of the system, the parameters for an appropriate high pass filter can be obtained. The system is capable of measuring Doppler shift frequencies from 0.05Hz up to around 4 kHz. By means of a phase evaluation algorithm, it is possible to observe objects with varying velocities. Finally, the system has been verified with a breathing test, where the depth and the frequency of the breath can be determined accurately.
TU1H-3	: A Ku-Band CMOS FMCW Radar Transceiver With Ring Oscillator Based Waveform Generation for Snowpack Remote Sensing
Yanghyo Kim, Adrian Tang, Kuo-Nan Liou, Thomas Painter, M.C. Frank Chang
Yanghyo Kim, Univ. of California, Los Angeles, United States
This paper presents a Ku-band (14-16 GHz) CMOS frequency modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar transceiver developed to measure snow depth for water management purposes and to aid in retrieval of snow water equivalent (SWE). An on-chip direct digital frequency synthesizer (DDFS) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) digitally generates the chirping waveform which then drives a ring oscillator based Ku-Band phase-locked loop (PLL) to provide the final Ku-band FMCW signal. Employing a ring oscillator as oppose to a tuned inductor based oscillator (LC-VCO) allows the radar to achieve wider chirp bandwidth resulting in a higher axial resolution (7.5cm) which is needed to accurately quantify the snowpack profile. The demonstrated radar chip is fabricated in a 65nm CMOS process, and it consumes 250mW of power under 1.1V supply, making its payload requirements suitable for observations from a small UAV.
TU1H-4	: Simultaneous Localization and Data-Interrogation Using a 24-GHz Modulated-Reflector FMCW Radar System
Werner Scheiblhofer, Reinhard Feger, Andreas Haderer, Stefan Scheiblhofer, Andreas Stelzer
Andreas Haderer, Inras GmbH, Austria
In this paper, the integration of a communication link for a modulated-reflector radar is presented. This kind of radar system is intended to determine the position of multiple semi-passive backscatter reflector nodes, designed to be mounted on different objects of interest. A method to transport information from these objects back to the radar-basestation is sketched, using the available hardware-resources of the nodes. In addition a technique minimizing the influence of this communication link on the localization capability of the system is presented and validated by measurements
TU1H-5	: Demonstration of an Efficient High Speed Communication Link Based on Regenerative Sampling
Christian Carlowitz, Martin Vossiek
Christian Carlowitz, Univ. of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
High-speed communication systems nowadays often face technological limitations, e.g., when operating at very high center frequencies. These scaling issues often result in low single-stage amplifier gain, which makes classic broadband communication architectures, most notably the homodyne transceiver, inefficient in terms of power consumption, implementation size and cost. For the first time, we demonstrate the feasibility of a full transmission system for a completely different architecture that allows escaping the gain limitations. It utilizes regenerative sampling in an oscillator to repetitively amplify CW or pulsed signals with a single low gain amplifier in order to achieve a high overall gain tunable over a large range. In this paper, we demonstrate the successful transmission of 8-PSK modulated pulsed signals with a data rate of 450 Mbit/s at 5.6 GHz and verify that phase regeneration from pulses generated by free running oscillators has no notable SNR drawback compared to classic systems.
Nonlinear Device, Circuit, and System Modeling & Analysis
Christopher Silva
The Aerospace Corporation
Anding Zhu
Univ. College Dublin
The session presents advances in the modeling of MIMO transmitters, and the simulation and design of oscillator circuits. In addition, distortion effects in silicon substrates and carbon-nanotube transistors are also addressed.
TU2E-1	: Analysis of Thermal Coupling Effects in Integrated MIMO Transmitters
Emanuel Baptista, Koen Buisman, João Caldinhas Vaz, Christian Fager
Christian Fager, Chalmers Univ. of Technology, Sweden
(10:10 - 10:30 )
This paper presents a detailed analysis of thermal coupling and self-heating effects in highly integrated wireless transmitters. A MIMO transmitter prototype consisting of two closely integrated power amplifiers was built and modelled through microwave and thermal characterizations. The thermal behavior was extracted using FEM software and modelled with an equivalent RC net-work. The PA model was obtained experimentally using a pulsed setup. An RF-thermal simulator was developed and used with the models to predict joint thermal and electrical behavior. Measurements with modulated communication signals were done and compared with the simulator to demonstrate its feasibility for analysis of thermal effects in highly integrated transmitter applications.
TU2E-2	: Nonlinear Technique for the Analysis of the Free-Running Oscillator Phase Noise in the Presence of an Interference Signal
Sergio Sancho, Almudena Suarez, Mabel Ponton
Sergio Sancho, Univ. of Cantabria, Spain
A new methodology for the prediction of the oscillator phase noise under the effect of an interference signal is presented. It is based on a semi-analytical formulation in the presence of the noisy interferer, using a realistic oscillator model, extracted from harmonic-balance simulations. The theoretical analysis of the phase process enables the derivation of key mathematical properties, used for an efficient calculation of the interfered-oscillator phase noise spectrum. The resulting quasi-periodic spectrum is predicted, as well as the impact of the interferer phase noise over each spectral component, in particular over the pulled oscillation frequency. It is demonstrated that, under some conditions, the phase noise at this component is pulled to that of the interference signal. Resonance effects at multiples of the beat frequency are also predicted. The analyses have been validated with experimental measurements, obtaining an excellent agreement.
TU2E-3	: Stability Analysis of Wireless Coupled-Oscillator Circuits
Mabel Ponton, Almudena Suarez
Mabel Ponton, Univ. of Cantabria, Spain
Abstract— Distributed synchronization of sensor networks can be achieved by coupling the oscillator signals of the sensor nodes. Previous works describe the coupling effects in an idealized man-ner, with constant scalar coefficients. Here a realistic analysis of the coupled-system dynamics is presented for the first time to our knowledge, taking into account the antenna gains and propaga-tion effects on the amplitude and phase values of the equivalent current sources, injecting the oscillator elements. The new formu-lation provides the synchronized oscillation frequency and ampli-tude and phase distributions of the coupled system. Distinct oscillation modes, with different phase shifts between the oscilla-tor elements, are identified, associated with the system symmetry. The stability properties of these modes change with the distance between the oscillator elements. The possibility to impose in-phase operation by tuning of the oscillator elements is demon-strated. Good agreement is obtained between simulation and measurements.
TU2E-4	: Linearity and Dynamic Range of Carbon-Nanotube Field-Effect Transistors
Stephen Maas
Stephen Maas, Nonlinear Technologies, Inc., United States
We examine the problem of evaluating and optimizing the linearity of a FET device, with application to carbon- nanotube (CNT) FETs. We begin by noting that conventional linearity criteria, such as input and output intermodulation intercept points, are poor figures of merit for such devices. Instead, we propose dynamic range as the figure of merit and use a simple, unilateral FET equivalent circuit to develop insight into its optimization. To do this, we derive expressions for the dynamic range of a FET described by that equivalent circuit. This exercise identifies criteria for optimizing linearity and comparing the linearity of dissimilar devices. Measurements of inherent linearity are presented, and we show that CNT devices are significantly more linear than modern microwave FETs.
TU2E-5	: RF Harmonic Distortion Modeling in Silicon-Based Substrates Including Non-Equilibrium Carrier Dynamics
Martin Rack, Jean-Pierre Raskin
Martin Rack, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium
In this paper, a simulation methodology is presented that takes carrier dynamics into account, disallowing instantaneous changes in substrate carrier concentrations, and providing more accurate estimations of HD components. Using this method, harmonic distortion (HD) components introduced in CPW lines on Si-based substrates are simulated. The results are compared to measured HD components over a wide range of bias points and at three fundamental frequencies from 900 MHz to 4 GHz. It is shown that carrier relaxation times are of first importance for understanding the HD introduced by Si-substrates at RF frequencies and above. Furthermore, characteristic dips in the HD components, are evaluated and shown to be tightly linked to the position of the device's DC bias voltage relative to the substrate's flatband voltage. The new simulation tool is also capable of capturing these typical dips in the HD curves, and provides physical insight into the reasons behind their existence.
Recent Advances in CMOS Integrated Circuits from Baseband to THz
Cynthia Hang
Terry Cisco
CAED
A wide range of designs exploiting CMOS technology to enable THz imaging, correlated W-Band LO's, Gbit data transfer, and substrate isolation.
TU2F-1	: A 475–511 GHz Radiating Source With SIW-Based Harmonic Power Extractor in 40 nm CMOS
Kaizhe Guo, Patrick Reynaert
Kaizhe Guo, Katholieke Univ. Leuven, Belgium
This paper presents a 0.49 terahertz (THz) radiating source in 40 nm CMOS. The radiating source is composed of a cross-coupled oscillator, a differential tripler, a substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) based harmonic power extractor (HPE) and a folded dipole antenna. The HPE can optimize third harmonic power extraction and provide suppression of unwanted lower order harmonic leakage. The measured equivalent isotropically radiated power (EIRP) of the radiating source is -4.1 dBm. According to simulated antenna gain of 11.2 dB, the output power and DC-to-THz efficiency of the signal source can be calculated as -15.3 dBm and 0.173%, respectively. The output frequency can be tuned from 475 to 511 GHz within 10 dB EIRP variation.
TU2F-2	: 0.4-THz Wideband Imaging Transmitter in 65-nm CMOS
Zeshan Ahmad, Kenneth O
Zeshan Ahmad, Texas Instruments, Inc., United States
A wideband THz imaging transmitter in a 65-nm bulk CMOS process is demonstrated. The TX generates 0.73 mW of peak output power at 448 GHz and operates over a setup-limited bandwidth of 15% by using an energy efficient frequency quadrupler implemented with a cascade of two frequency doublers, and by co-optimizing the power driver and accumulation-mode symmetric MOS varactor frequency tripler. The TX has the highest reported single-element power density and 0.8% (1.66% w/o PLL) DC to RF conversion efficiency after including simulated PLL power consumption is the highest reported among CMOS and SiGe HBT sources operating above 0.3 THz.
TU2F-3	: A Fully-Integrated Cartesian Feedback Loop Transmitter in 65 nm CMOS
Jinbo Li, Ran Shu, Shilei Hao, Bo Yu, Tongning Hu, Yu Ye, Jane Gu
Jinbo Li, Univ. of California, Davis, United States
This paper demonstrates a fully-integrated Cartesian feedback loop transmitter (TX) in CMOS 65nm. LO path phase shifters, aiming at compensating the phase misalignments between up- and down-conversion mixers or RF path phase delays, are improved by an interpolation scheme to ensure consecutive 360° tuning range. Power supplies of different circuit blocks are separated to cut off the nested feedback loops formed between the power buses and the circuit blocks for the stability consideration. The transmitter delivers 18.5dBm output P1dB at 9GHz. Over 10dB suppression ratio of intermodulation products in the two-tone test is achieved, and ACPR is improved by 9dB using a 2Mbps 16QAM testing signal. The maximum IM3 suppression is over 15 dB at medium output power levels.
TU2F-4	: A 0.029 mm^2 8 Gbit/s Current-Mode AGC Amplifier With Reconfigurable Closed-Loop Control in 65 nm CMOS
Bharatha Kumar Thangarasu, Kaixue Ma, Kiat Seng Yeo
Bharatha Kumar Thangarasu, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore
A 8 Gbit/s current-mode automatic gain control (CMAGC) am-plifier with a reconfigurability between an internal closed loop control (analog AGC) and external baseband feedback control (digital AGC) is introduced in this paper. By using the p-n diode in CMOS technology, this CMAGC achieves an exponential vari-able gain control and a logarithmic power detection with more than 24 dB dynamic range. The proposed CMAGC consumes a maximum 48 mW dc power from a 1.2 V supply voltage and the core design occupies only 0.029 mm2 die area.
TU2F-5	: Experimental Study on Substrate Coupling in Bulk Silicon and RF-SOI CMOS up to 110 GHz
Vadim Issakov, Johannes Rimmelspacher, Andreas Werthof, Amelie Hagelauer, Robert Weigel
Johannes Rimmelspacher, Infineon Technologies AG, Germany
Interferences injected to an RF circuit may strongly deteriorate the electrical performance. Parasitic coupling via substrate is one of the dominant interference transmission mechanisms in highly integrated systems. The effect of substrate coupling becomes more critical at higher circuit frequencies. This poses a particular challenge for millimeter-wave systems, since isolation become less efficient with an increasing frequency. This paper presents an experimental study on coupling via bulk silicon and RFSOI substrates. We investigate in measurement up to 110 GHz efficiency of several isolation techniques, such as triple-well, p+ and n+ guard-rings and use of undoped highly resistive region. Additionally, RF-SOI substrates are known to be beneficial for higher crosstalk isolation. However, also this isolation degrades at higher frequencies. Hence, we investigate in measurement up to 110 GHz the isolation via low-resistivity and high-resistivity trap-rich SOI substrate variants. Test structures were realized in 40 nm bulk CMOS and 45 nm RF-SOI.
Developments in High Power MMIC Amplifiers
Gayle Collins
Nuvotronics
James Komiak
BAE Systems, Inc.
New advances in high performance integrated power amplifiers will be presented in this session. A number of new and novel approaches to improve bandwidth, linearity and efficiency of the MMIC PA are included in this session. Broadband techniques at high power and efficiency are demonstrated using a 0.2um GaN HEMT technology. A novel load modulation approach for the extension of Doherty performance using GaN HEMTS will be shown and a linearity enhancement method using bias circuitry will be discussed. A new high efficiency, low cost approach to Doherty design with an optimized footprint will be shown for the first time.
TU2G-1	: Single and Dual Input Packaged 5.5–6.5 GHz, 20 W, Quasi-MMIC GaN-HEMT Doherty Power Amplifier
Mohammed Ayad, Marc Camiade, Estelle Byk, Denis Barataud, Guillaume Neveux
Mohammed Ayad, United Monolithic Semiconductors, France
This paper presents the design, the realization and the power characteristics of plastic low cost packaged symmetric Doherty Power Amplifiers (DPA) operating in the 5.5-6.5GHz bandwidth. A single input (SI-DPA) and a dual input (DI-DPA) DPA are proposed based on two power bars composed of two GaN HEMT cells. Input and output matching networks are designed on passive GaAs MMIC technology. The measured power results under continuous wave signal at the same input level of a conventional Deep class AB PA in the one hand, the SI-DPA and the DI-DPA in the other hand are presented. To our knowledge, it is the first published SI and DI-DPAs working at C band, designed using Quasi-MMIC technology and assembled in plastic package.
TU2G-2	: A Compact 60 W MMIC Amplifier Based on a Novel 3-Way 1:2:1 Doherty Architecture With Best-in-Class Efficiency for Small Cells
Xavier Moronval, John Gajadharsing, Jean-Jacques Bouny
Xavier Moronval, Ampleon, France
A novel semi-integrated three-way 1:2:1 Doherty amplifier architecture is proposed to address the high efficiency / low cost / small footprint challenges of small cells. Using this approach, a 35 x 35 mm2 amplifier based on a 60 W MMIC is designed for the 2.11 to 2.17 GHz frequency band. It achieves a maximum gain of 27.4 dB, an average efficiency of 48.5 % at 8 dB back-off, and can be linearized to lower than -58 dBc ACPR level with a 20 MHz wide LTE signal.
TU2G-3	: Two-Stage Integrated Doherty Power Amplifier With Extended Instantaneous Bandwidth for 4/5G Wireless Systems
Seungkee Min, Henry Christange, Margaret Szymanowski
Seungkee Min, NXP Semiconductors, United States
A highly linear fully integrated 40 W 2-stage Doherty power amplifier (DPA) for 4/5G communication systems is introduced. By using the digital pre-distortion (DPD) technique, the proposed DPA achieved -58 dBc ACLR with 42% total line-up efficiency at 39 dBm average output power with a 365 MHz IBW at a center frequency of 2 GHz. To extend instantaneous bandwidth (IBW), the proposed power amplifier (PA) is employed with linearity enhancement circuitry to minimize low frequency second-order term. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first 2-stage RFIC DPA which can be linearized to this level with 365 MHz signal bandwidth and achieve this level of efficiency.
TU2G-4	: 2 to 18 GHz High-Power and High-Efficiency Amplifiers
Phu Tran, Michael Smith, Mike Wojtowicz, Mansoor Siddiqui, Leo Callejo
Phu Tran, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, United States
The design and performance of a MMIC power amplifier chip set covering the 2 to 18 GHz band using 0.2μm GaN HEMT technology is presented. Measured results of the Output MMIC show an average output power of 20.7 W and an average PAE greater than 27% across the 2 to 18 GHz band, while the Driver MMIC demonstrates an 8 to 10 W capability with an average PAE of 28% across the 2 to 18 GHz band. These results are among the highest power and PAE reported from MMICs covering this bandwidth.
Multi-GHz Frontend Mixed-Signal Circuits and All-Digital Transmitters
Hyoung Soo Kim
Hermann Boss
This session presents 7 papers that address enhancements of Multi-GHz fronted mixed-signal circuits and all-digital transmitter. The presented mixed signal circuits use SiGe and InP Technologies and demonstrate throughput and performance enhancement compared to prior art. The session is continued with papers that promotes new architectures for all-digital transmitters that reduces complexity while increasing the system bandwidth and operation frequency.
TU2H-1	: 57.5 GHz Bandwidth 4.8 Vpp Swing Linear Modulator Driver for 64 GBaud m-PAM Systems
Alireza Zandieh, Sorin Voinigescu, Peter Schvan
Alireza Zandieh, Univ. of Toronto, Canada
A novel series-stacked large swing push-pull MOSHBT driver was implemented in SiGe BiCMOS. The circuit achieves 4.8Vpp differential swing, 57.5GHz bandwidth and has an output compression point of 12 dBm per side. 4-PAM and 8-PAM eye diagrams were measured at 56 GBaud for a record data rate of 168 Gb/s. 4-PAM 64Gbaud eye diagrams were also demonstrated, The circuit consumes 820/600 mW with/without the predriver, for an energy efficiency of 4.88/3.57 pJ/b.
TU2H-2	: A 128-GS/s 63-GHz-Bandwidth InP-HBT-Based Analog-MUX Module for Ultra-Broadband D/A Conversion Subsystem
Munehiko Nagatani, Hitoshi Wakita, Hiroshi Yamazaki, Hideyuki Nosaka, Kenji Kurishima, Minoru Ida, Yutaka Miyamoto
Munehiko Nagatani, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., Japan
A 128-GS/s 63-GHz-bandwidth 2:1 analog-multiplexer (AMUX) module has been developed for ultra-broadband digital-to-analog (D/A) conversion subsystems. The AMUX IC was fabricated using 0.5-μm-emitter InP HBTs, which have a peak ft and fmax of 290 and 320 GHz, respectively. The IC has a through bandwidth of 67 GHz. We developed an ultra-low-loss metal package equipped with G3PO (SMPS) connectors. The AMUX module based on our new package has a through bandwidth of 63 GHz and operates at a sampling rate of up to 128 GS/s. We then constructed an over-50-GHz-bandwidth D/A conversion subsystem based on two 26-GHz-bandwidth sub-DACs and this AMUX module. In addition, we successfully demonstrated a 214-Gb/s discrete multi-tone (DMT) signal generation.
TU2H-3	: A 27-GHz 45-dB SFDR Track-and-Hold Amplifier Using Modified Darlington Amplifier and Cascoded SEF in 0.18 µm SiGe Process
Yu-An Lin, Ya-Che Yeh, Hong-Yeh Chang
Yu-An Lin, National Central Univ., Taiwan
A broadband high-speed high-linearity track-and-hold amplifier (THA) is presented in this paper using 0.18 μm SiGe process. A switched emitter follower track-and-hold (T/H) stage with cas-code stage is adopted to achieve high resolution for analog-to-digital conversion. A modified Darlington amplifier with peaking technique is used to enhance the input bandwidth. With a dc power consumption of 94.3 mW, the proposed THA demon-strates a 3-dB input bandwidth from DC to 27 GHz, a maximum spurious-free dynamic range of 45 dB, and a minimum total harmonic distortion of -40 dB. The proposed circuit has potential for high-speed high-dynamic-range applications due to its supe-rior performance.
TU2H-4	: A 2x2 80 Gbps 2^{15}-1 PRBS Generator With Three Operational Modes and a Clock Divider
Mohammad Mahdi Khafaji, Guido Belfiore, Ronny Henker, Frank Ellinger
Guido Belfiore, Technische Univ. Dresden, Germany
An 80 Gbps 2^{15}-1 pseudo-random bit sequence (PRBS) generator offering a unique feature of two programmable channels is presented. It is possible to select either a replica of the full rate stream, two parallel streams at half the rate, or a combination of external and internal pattern to the output. This flexibility makes the design suitable for generating proper test signal for both binary and 4-PAM (pulse-amplitude-modulation) communication systems. While the longer sequence in this design adds to the complexity, the energy per bit is comparable with the state-of-the-art designs. Notably for the clock drivers, as one of the bottlenecks of a PRBS generator, an open-collector structure with distributed loading is studied and optimized for very low power operation. The design features a clock divider and zero detection circuit as well. The circuit was fabricated in a 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS process (300/500 GHz f_T/f_{max}).
TU2H-5	: All-Digital Transmitter Based on Cascaded Delta-Sigma Modulators for Relaxing the Analog Filtering Requirements
Daniel Dinis, Arnaldo Oliveira, José Vieira
Daniel Dinis, Instituto De Telecomunicacoes, Portugal
In this paper it will be shown that cascading Delta-Sigma Modulators with different sampling rates can have a considerable impact in relaxing the high quality factor of the analog output filter used in All-Digital Transmitters. In particular, a significant reduction of the noise peak power can be achieved with just minor changes in the hardware. This novel concept has been successfully implemented and validated on an FPGA-based transmitter, and compared with the conventional architectures that perform a single-bit quantization into a single stage.
TU2H-6	: An FPGA-Based All-Digital Transmitter With 9.6-GHz 2nd Order Time-Interleaved Delta-Sigma Modulation for 500-MHz Bandwidth
Masaaki Tanio, Shinichi Hori, Noriaki Tawa, Kazuaki Kunihiro
Masaaki Tanio, NEC Corp., Japan
An FPGA-based all-digital transmitter with 9.6-GHz 2nd order Time-Interleaved ΔΣ-modulation (TI-DSM) is presented. To improve the operation frequency of TI-DSM, bit separation architecture is proposed. This proposed architecture realizes the 1-bit digital transmitter with 500-MHz bandwidth. This is the widest bandwidth modulation among state-of-the-art FPGA-based all-digital transmitters.
TU2H-7	: All-Digital Transmitter Based Antenna Array With Reduced Hardware Complexity
In this paper, we present a novel architecture for an All-Digital FPGA-based Antenna Array RF Transmitter. The proposed method reduces the complexity inherent to the design of antenna arrays by removing external Digital-to-Analog Converters and external analog upconversion stages. With such a concept, the analog front-end complexity is highly reduced and, consequently, more radiating elements can be integrated. This novel concept has been successfully validated with an FPGA-based transmitter. Normalized radiation patterns as well as Error Vector Magnitude measurements were obtained for different steering angles. A minimum steering resolution of 1º was achieved with a low-complexity baseband phase shifting procedure. In addition to that, an automated calibration procedure is also presented and evaluated.
TUIF1:
Interactive Forum - One
Matthew Moorefield
Univ. of Hawaii
Kent Sarabia
Overlook Concourse
TUIF1-1	: Image Theory Based Miniaturization of Nonradiative Dielectric Coupler for Millimeter Wave Integrated Circuits
Ahmed Sakr, Walid Dyab, Ke Wu
Ahmed Sakr, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada
A simple analytical representation supported with equivalent circuit modeling is presented for a nonradiative dielectric coupler. A matrix form for the dispersion relation and the field coefficients is introduced for simplicity. The design methodology and miniaturization of such couplers using two vertical mirror conducting planes is studied. The new image-nonradiative dielectric coupler is 50% smaller in the cross sectional size and has a relatively good reduction in the required coupling length, as compared to conventional coupler without the conducting walls. Those image conducting planes suppressed the unwanted modes and guaranteed a single mode operation when exciting the structure with a horizontally polarized field.
TUIF1-3	: Plane-Wave Scattering of a Periodic Corrugated Cylinder
Samuel Garcia, Jonathan Bagby, Ivette Morazzani
Samuel Garcia, Florida Atlantic University, United States
A novel approach to modeling the scattered field of a periodic corrugated cylinder, from an oblique incident plane wave, is pre-sented. The approach utilizes radial waveguide approximations for fields within the corrugations, which are point matched to approximated scattered fields outside of the corrugation to solve for the expansion coefficients. The point matching is done with TMz and TEz modes simultaneously, allowing for hybrid modes to exist. The methodology and analysis applied in this paper provide a solution for computational electromagnetics, RF communications, radar systems and the like, for the design, development, and analysis of such systems. The modeling techniques offered pro-vide a full description and prediction of the scattered field of a periodic corrugated cylinder. The model is configured to validate the results by comparing them to alternate methods for the same geometry.
TUIF1-4	: Electromagnetic Fields and Modes in 2-Layer Spherical Cavities
Ingo Wolff
Ingo Wolff, IMST GmbH, Germany
Electromagnetic fields and modes in a spherical cavity with a dielectric sphere as an inset are discussed. The influence of dielectric losses and conductor losses as well as of the geometric parameters on the eigenvalues, Q-factors, electromagnetic fields and modes in the cavity is analyzed . Two existing modes of the electromagnetic fields, the cavity modes and the open dielectric sphere modes, are identified inside the cavity and their physical backgrund is discussed in detail.
TUIF1-5	: A Negative Group Delay Tuner With Stable Insertion Loss
Lin-Sheng Wu, Liang-Feng Qiu, Jun-Fa Mao
Lin-Sheng Wu, Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ., China
A new method is proposed for tunable negative group delay (NGD) circuit in this paper. The tuner is based on a transmission line resonator loaded on a λ/4 stub, and a lumped resistor and two varactors are mounted on it. By properly biasing the two varactors, the susceptance slope parameter and unloaded Q-factor are significantly tuned while the resonant frequency and input admittance are almost unchanged. In the measured results of the tuner prototype designed at 1.0 GHz, when NGD is tuned from 0.2 to 1.9 ns, the stable insertion loss is only changed from 3.4 to 2.5 dB.
TUIF1-6	: Estimation of Conductive Losses in Complementary Split Ring Resonator (CSRR) Loading an Embedded Microstrip Line and Applications
Lijuan Su, Javier Mata-Contreras, Paris Vélez, Ferran Martín
Lijuan Su, Univ. Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
In this paper, a simple method to estimate the conductive losses in complementary split ring resonators (CSRRs) is proposed. It is based on the measurement of the transmission coefficient in an embedded microstrip line with the CSRR etched in the ground plane, beneath the conductor strip. It is assumed that losses are due to the substrate (dielectric losses) and CSRR (ohmic and dielectric losses) since conductive losses in the strip of the line are negligible. By considering the circuit model of the CSRR-loaded line, including the substrate conductance plus the conductive (ohmic resistance) and dielectric losses of the CSRR, it is possible to infer from the insertion loss the real part of the shunt impedance at resonance, then the ohmic resistance of the CSRR can be estimated. Once this resistance is known, it is possible to use these CSRR-loaded structures to estimate the complex permittivity of dielectric samples and liquids.
TUIF1-7	: A Novel High Q Inductor Based on Double-sided Substrate Integrated Suspended Line Technology With Patterned Substrate
Lianyue Li, Kaixue Ma, Shouxian Mou
Lianyue Li, Univ. of Electronic Science and Technology of China, China
This paper presents a novel high quality factor spiral inductor based on substrate integrated suspended line technology. Sus-pended substrate are hollowed in specific shape for reducing the dielectric substrate loss. And double-sided interconnected stripline are used for diminishing the metal ohmic loss. Simula-tion and measurement results demonstrate that the double-sided interconnected spiral inductor with patterned suspended sub-strate can improve inductor quality factor up to about 40%.
TUIF1-8	: A Systematic Coupling Balance Scheme to Enhance Amplitude and Phase Matches for Long Traveling N-Pair Differential Signals
Jinbo Li, Jane Gu
This paper presents a systematic coupling balance technique to enhance signal matches for long traveling N-pair differential signals. The analysis is conducted on 2N lines with closed-form expressions to indicate the three causes of mismatches. Then, a systematic method is presented to address the three factors to realize balanced coupling for signal matches by using twisting schemes. The effectiveness of this technique is demonstrated on FR4 print-ed-circuit board (PCB) for I Q traces, which shows great suppression of I Q imbalances with well-matched simulation and measurement results. The bandwidth with 1° degree mismatch is boosted from 75MHz to 360MHz, or from 135MHz to 680MHz considering the overall effects of the four signals. This technique requires no power consumption or complex circuits or algorithms, and can be extended to high frequencies with the scaling of the structure size.
TUIF1-9	: Half-Mode Hexagonal Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) Structure and its Application
Taehee Jang, Komlan Payne, L. Jay Guo, Jun (Brandon) Choi
Taehee Jang, Univ. of Michigan, United States
A half-mode hexagonal substrate integrated waveguides (SIWs) which the internal angle is 90 deg are used, and a low-profile and tripolarization antenna with three independent ports and three orthogonal polarizations is designed. Both CRLH SIW and ZOR SIW antenna for dual-band operation are designed based on HMHSIW, so that efficiently integrated each other to reduce side and provide more design freedom.
TUIF1-10	: Physical Evidence of Mode Conversion Along Mode-Selective Transmission Line
Desong Wang, Faezeh Fesharaki, Ke Wu
Desong Wang, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada
This work investigates and demonstrates the evidence of mode conversion along the mode-selective transmission line (MSTL). In this work, mode conversion of the fundamental mode is observed through examining the field distributions of a longitudinally uni-form MSTL. Characteristic mode conversion frequency is defined based on the distribution properties of the longitudinal magnetic field component and the intrinsic physical implications. The accu-racy and effectiveness of this definition are verified numerically and experimentally. The result indicates that a quasi-TEM fun-damental mode and a quasi-TE10 fundamental mode dominate in the MSTL below and above this frequency, respectively. This mode conversion could have specific applications in the design of microwave, millimeter-wave, and THz components and systems.
TUIF1-11	: Development of a Novel 10 GHz-Band Hose-Type Soft Resin Waveguide
Shotaro Ishino, Koji Yano, Satoshi Matsumoto, Takuo Kashiwa, Naoki Shinohara
Shotaro Ishino, Furuno Electric Co., Ltd., Japan
We develop a resin waveguide for microwave power transfer and wireless communication in an automobile harness. Resin waveguides are more lightweight, low-cost, and flexible than conventional waveguides. Our prototype resin waveguide is fabricated from an elastomeric material with a very low dielectric loss by a copper-foil forming process. The low emission and loss of the transmission line are confirmed by the transmission characteristic (−0.3 dB/m in the 10 GHz band).
TUIF1-12	: 3D Heterogeneous Integration Technology Using Hot via MMIC and Silicon Interposer With Millimeter Wave Application
Jun Zhou, Jiapeng Yang, Ya Shen
Jun Zhou, Nanjing Electronic Device Research Institute, China
The block diagram of 3D heterogeneous integration using hot-via LNA, silicon interposer, PCB is presented in this paper. Several broadband vertical transitions between up and down are simulated and optimized by EM simulator. The vertical transition works well from DC to 40GHz, the return loss is better than 15 dB; the insertion loss of each single transition is less than 1 dB. The LNA operating at Ka band using hot via technology is also presented and assembled onto the silicon substrate and multilayer PCB. This stacked LNA module shows the good performance and reasonable agreement with on wafer measurement of normal LNA.
TUIF1-13	: Development of a 1.85 mm Coaxial Blind Mating Interconnect for ATE Applications
Bill Rosas, Jose Moreira, Daniel Lam
Bill Rosas, Signal Microwave, United States
The continuous increase on the I/O data rate and frequency on large volume integrated circuits creates significant challenges on the interconnect to the device under test (DUT) printed circuit board test fixture for automated test equipment (ATE). In this paper we will present a blind mating interface for ATE systems based on a 1.85 mm coaxial geometry to achieve a 65 GHz bandwidth guaranteed interconnect. We present measured S-parameters and also data eye diagrams for a 100 Gbps NRZ application.
TUIF1-14	: A Micromachined Packaging With Incorporated RF-Choke for Integration of Active Chips at SubMillimeter-Wave Frequencies
Armin Jam, Jack East, Kamal Sarabandi
Armin Jam, Univ. of Michigan, United States
This paper presents the design, fabrication and evaluation of a packaging method for integration of active MMIC at sub-MMW frequencies. The concept is based on a peg and socket structure composed of RF transitions and biasing circuitry where the RF/DC pads on the MMIC chip mate with the on-wafer RF transitions and biasing pads, respectively, for a seamless packaging method. To prevent instability of the packaged device, an ultra-wideband RF-choke is devised to provide better than 15 dB of isolation between the chip and the biasing circuitry from 30-330 GHz. A prototype of the RF-choke along with the rest of the packaging block is fabricated using silicon micromachining technology at Y-band and the performance is measured where close agreement of the measured and simulated results is shown. Additionally, the proposed integration method is used for packaging of an amplifier at 210 GHz where excellent RF and biasing results are reported.
TUIF1-15	: A Non-Galvanic D-Band MMIC-to-Waveguide Transition Using eWLB Packaging Technology
Ahmed Hassona, Zhongxia Simon He, Chiara Mariotti, Franz Dielacher, Vessen Vassilev, Yinggang Li, Joachim Oberhammer, Herbert Zirath
Ahmed Hassona, Chalmers Univ. of Technology, Sweden
This paper presents a novel D-band interconnect implemented in a low-cost embedded Wafer Level Ball Grid Array (eWLB) commercial process. The non-galvanic transition is realized through a slot antenna directly radiating to a standard air filled waveguide. The interconnect achieves low insertion loss and relatively wide bandwidth. The measured average insertion loss is 3 dB across a bandwidth of 22% covering the frequency range 110-138 GHz. The measured average return loss is -10 dB across the same frequency range. Adopting the low-cost eWLB process and standard waveguides makes the transition an attractive solution for interconnects beyond 100 GHz. This solution enables mm-wave system on chip (SoC) to be manufactured and assembled in high volumes cost effectively. To the authors' knowledge, this is first attempt to fabricate a packaging solution beyond 100 GHz using eWLB technology.
TUIF1-16	: Capacitive Microwave Resonator Printed on a Paper Substrate for CNT Based Gas Sensor
Aymen Abdelghani, Dominique Baillargeat, Stephane Bila
Aymen Abdelghani, Xlim - CNRS- Unversite De Liroges, France
Inkjet-printed RF electronics fabricated on paper and other flexible substrates are introduced as a low-cost solution for the sensor applications. Inkjet printing is an additive process that has enabled various disruptive technologies combining new materials with novel multidisciplinary operation concepts. This paper presents a fully inkjet printed capacitive structure used to provide a differential detection, by comparing the frequency responses of quasi-twin structures, one with and one without sensitive material. The sensitive surface is printed with a poly-mer solution containing multi-wall carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and the resonator is dimensioned for operating in the RF band.
TUIF1-17	: RF Characterization of Coplanar Waveguide (CPW) Transmission Lines on Single-Crystalline Diamond Platform for Integrated High Power RF Electronic Systems
Yuxiao He, Michael Becker, Tim Grotjohn, Aaron Hardy, Matthias Muehle, Thomas Schuelke, John Papapolymerou
Yuxiao He, Michigan State Univ., United States
This paper presents the fabrication process of single-crystalline diamond platform used for high power RF components. We report –for the first time- results of a Coplanar Waveguide (CPW) transmission line printed on the single-crystalline diamond substrate using the Aerosol Jet Printing technique. The transmission line is 2.4404 mm long and is printed on the 3.5 mm $\times$ 3.5 mm diamond substrate utilizing a silver ink as the conducting material. The characteristic impedance of the CPW line is designed to be 50 Ohms. The measured average loss per millimeter of the line is 0.36 dB$/$mm and 0.52 dB$/$mm at 20 GHz and 40 GHz respectively. This results show the single-crystalline diamond substrate is a good candidate for the development of highly integrated RF circuits.
TUIF1-18	: All-Printed Conformal Electronically Scanned Phased Array
Mahdi Haghzadeh, Craig Armiento, Alkim Akyurtlu
Mahdi Haghzadeh, Univ. of Massachusetts, Lowell, United States
We present a novel fully printed, conformal phased array antenna with beam forming capability. Analog phase shifters with a left handed transmission line (LHTL) design are used at the feed lines of four patch subarrays. The microstrip LHTL phase shifter is made of series tunable capacitors and shunt inductive stubs. The voltage-variable capacitor (varactor) is an interdigitated capacitor (IDC) filled with a novel ferroelectric nanocomposite. The sinterless nanocomposite dielectric is made by suspending especially-engineered nanoparticles of ferroelectric Barium Strontium Titanate (BST) in a thermoplastic polymer. Direct-ink writing techniques are used to digitally print the conductive and ferroelectric features on flexible substrates. RF measurements on varactors showed up to 10% capacitance tunability at 2GHz. Preliminary gain measurements on the phased array prototype confirmed electronic beam steering. The proposed phased array design has the potential for roll-to-roll fabrication of ultra-low-cost beamforming systems for communication and radar applications.
TUIF1-19	: A Lego-Like Reconfigurable Cavity Using 3-D Polyjet Technology
Yuxiao He, Premjeet Chahal, John Papapolymerou
Combination of lego-like tuning post cavity structure and 3-D Polyjet printing is utilized to demonstrate a high Q X-band resonator for the first time. The dominant mode is TE101 mode with the resonant frequency of 8.32 GHz. The Polyjet printing techniques allows for high resolution, fast and low cost prototyping. Here the cavity is assembled by two 3-D Polyjet printed pieces through a lego-like process. While the 6 tuning posts are used to perturb the field inside the cavity, making such cavity to be reconfigurable by tuning the resonant frequency. Simulation and measured results match very closely. About 0.1% frequency shift and a unloaded quality factor of 391 were measured for the resonator with perturbation. And average of 0.54 % of frequency shift as well as the average quality factor of 182 at all the tuned resonant frequencies. This paper demonstrates the advantage of Polyjet fabrication process for RF structure.
TUIF1-20	: Towards Low-Cost Sensors for Real-Time Monitoring of Contaminant Ions in Water Sources
Amin Gorji, Amy Kaleita, Nicola Bowler
Amin Gorji, Iowa State Univ., United States
In this work, a systematic study of the dielectric properties of environmentally-relevant electrolyte liquids is presented. Excessive amount of unwanted chemicals and ions in water sources can often cause environmental and health concerns. The lack of affordable and real-time sensors for these contaminants limits effective conservation and management strategies. To tackle these problems, we propose a method to exploit indicators extracted from dielectric spectra up to 20 GHz and thereby establish a basis for developing a low-cost sensing system. Results for nitrate, sulfate, and chloride ions show that the method can be judiciously used to uniquely estimate the concentration and type of ions.
TUIF1-21	: Biological Cell Discrimination Based on Their High Frequency Dielectropheretic Signatures at UHF Frequencies
Fatima Hjeij, Claire Dalmay, Cristiano Palego, Mehmet Kaynak, Arnaud Pothier
Arnaud Pothier, Xlim - CNRS- Unversite De Liroges, France
This paper deals with the experimentation of dielectrophoresis techniques translated to radiofrequencies in order to characterize individually biological cells with the aim to discriminate them from their own intracellular dielectric specificities. Dielectrophoresis is a well-established technique frequently experimented in the kHz frequency to manipulate and sort electrically polarized particles thanks to motion forces induced on such particles once they cross a non-uniform AC electric field. Its efficiency for bio-logical cell characterization has been largely proved taking ad-vantage of interfacial polarization effects induced on both side of plasma membrane. The novelty of this work consists in exploring the capability of UHF signals to generate such motion effects on flowing biological cells in a microfluidic micro-device. With applied signal above 50MHz, we will see that distinct cross over frequencies can be identified as function of the cell type related this time to intracellular dielectric feature difference between cells and their extracellular media.
TUIF1-22	: Frequency-Division-Multiplexed Signal and Power Transfer for Wearable Devices Networked Via Conductive Embroideries on a Cloth
Akihito Noda, Hiroyuki Shinoda
Akihito Noda, Univ. of Tokyo, Japan
We propose a powering scheme for tiny wearable devices attached on a cloth without individual one-to-one wires. Devices with a special connector consisting of a tack and a clutch are stuck through a special cloth embroidered with conductive threads. Physical mounting of the devices and electrical connection are integrated into a single action, i.e., just sticking the connector. Combination of microwave/high-frequency circuit technology and recent highly conductive soft fabric materials opens up a new implementation scheme for wearable sensing/display/communication systems.
TUIF1-23	: Wireless System for Continuous Monitoring of Core Body Temperature
William Haines, Parisa Momenroodaki, Eric Berry, Michael Fromandi, Zoya Popovic
William Haines, Univ. of Colorado, United States
Presented is a wireless wearable device aimed at continuously monitoring internal temperature a few centimeters deep in the body. A radiometer operating in the 1.4-1.427 GHz quiet band is used with a circular patch probe to measure the thermal radiation emitted by the body, which is proportional to temperature. The output is digitized and transmitted over Bluetooth by a TI CC2541, using a printed inverted-F antenna. The wearable device is powered by a 3.7V Li-Ion battery, through three buck-conversion circuits. The sensor design trades performance (continuous calibration) for simplicity to reduce size and power consumption, however validated measurement data of water temperature inside the cheek demonstrates the feasibility of radiometric internal temperature measurement in a wearable platform.
TUIF1-24	: 3D Printed Wearable Flexible SIW and Microfluidics Sensors for Internet of Things and Smart Health Applications
Wenjing Su, Zihan Wu, Yunnan Fang, Ryan Bahr, Pulugurtha Markondeya Raj, Rao Tummala, Manos Tentzeris
Wenjing Su, Georgia Institute of Technology, United States
In this paper, a flexible SIW wearable sensing platform is proposed with a novel 3D printing process enabling fast-prototyping customized wearable devices. SLA 3D printing that enables the fast prototyping and customization of wearable sensing platform. Two different flexible metallization approaches are explored and realized in this paper, which is supplemental to each other and provide an excellent 3D metallization solution together. Two 3D SIW transmission lines are shown with a great flexibility and a great potential of applicability in wearable devices. A proof-of-concept microfluidics sensor based on an SIW slot waveguide antenna, is also presented in the paper with sensitivity of 1.7 MHz/Er, which can be used in the wearable sensing platforms of real-time monitoring of body fluids for Internet-of-Things and distributed healthcare. The proposed SIW-based flexible wearable devices along with the microfluidics sensors can be used in various internet-of-things applications including smart health.
Interactive Forum - Two
George Zhang
Ruthsenne Perron
TUIF2-1	: Implicit Space Mapping With Variable-Fidelity EM Simulations and Substrate Partitioning for Reliable Microwave Design Optimization
Slawomir Koziel, Adrian Bekasiewicz, John Bandler
Slawomir Koziel, Reykjavik University, Iceland
Surrogate-assisted techniques enable considerable reduction of the computational cost of EM-driven design optimization processes. Space mapping (SM) is still the most popular method of this kind. Implicit SM (ISM) is particularly attractive because it does not alter the domain of the underlying coarse model and is easy to implement. Yet, ISM is difficult to apply if an equivalent circuit coarse model is unavailable or of poor quality. In this paper, we demonstrate feasible ISM implementation involving variable-fidelity EM simulation models. Preassigned parameters of ISM are introduced as dielectric permittivity values of the substrate sections in the coarse-mesh EM model (utilized as a coarse model for SM). By changing the number of sections, the number of preassigned parameters (and, consequently, the surrogate model flexibility) can be readily controlled. Our approach is demonstrated using a miniaturized rat-race coupler and compared to conventional SM approaches utilizing an equivalent circuit model.
TUIF2-2	: Automatic Parametric Model Development Technique for RFIC Inductors With Large Modeling Space
Humayun Kabir, Lei Zhang, Kevin Kim
Humayun Kabir, NXP Semiconductors, United States
We present an automatic method to extract parametric model for RFIC inductors in large modeling space covering a wide range of geometrical variables. We use a modified double-pi network as the equivalent circuit topology of the inductor. Lumped element values are computed using empirical functions which are formulated in terms of inductor geometries and numerical coefficients. The automated method extracts coefficients through optimization of circuit model and electromagnetic (EM) data. An intelligent mapping scheme is formulated to map geometries of inductors to equivalent circuit components using neural networks making the model suitable for handling wide range of geometrical variations. Model developed in this way shows good accuracy compared to EM data with a significant reduction of developmental cost.
TUIF2-3	: Efficient Extreme Learning Machine With Transfer Functions for Filter Design
Li-Ye Xiao, Wei Shao, Tu-Lu Liang, Bing-Zhong Wang
Li-Ye Xiao, Univ. of Electronic Science and Technology of China, China
This paper proposes a model based on a machine learning algorithm, extreme learning machine (ELM), and the pole-residue-based transfer function (TF) for parametric modeling of electromagnetic behavior of microwave components. Compared with the model based on the artificial neural network, the proposed ELM model can obtain the accurate results for microwave passive component design with the small training datasets due to its good iterative learning ability. The validity and efficiency of this proposed model is confirmed by a triple-mode filter.
TUIF2-4	: Extreme Learning Machine for the Behavioral Modeling of RF Power Amplifiers
Chengyu Zhang, Yuan-Yuan Zhu, Qian-Fu Cheng, Hai-Peng Fu, Jian-Guo Ma, Qi-Jun Zhang
Hai-Peng Fu, Tianjin Univ., China
In this brief, an efficient approach using extreme learning machine (ELM) is first proposed for the behavioral modeling of radio frequency power amplifiers (RF PAs). As a single-hidden layer feedforward neural network algorithm, ELM offers significant speed advantages over conventional neural network learning algorithms. Compared to the existing behavioral modeling based on ANN, the proposed method also requires minimal human intervention. A Class-E PA is taken as an example for comparing ELM against traditional neural network learning algorithm. The modeling results of ELM for AM/AM and IMD3 agree well with the simulation results, and the speed advantage of the proposed method has also been confirmed.
TUIF2-5	: An Analytical Approach for Electrical and Thermal Simulation of Branch-Line Coupler
Sheng Ni, Min Tang, Lin-Sheng Wu, Junfa Mao
Min Tang, Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ., China
An analytical approach based on the transmission line theory is presented for efficient electrical and thermal simulation of the branch-line coupler. The distributed power consumption of the structure is obtained by the classical transmission line theory. Further, with the thermal transmission line model, the analytical expression of temperature rise distribution (TRD) of the coupler is derived by using the odd/even-mode decomposition and the Green's function method. The validity and high efficiency of the proposed method are demonstrated by the numerical example.
TUIF2-6	: Pneumatically Tuned Microfluidic Meta-Atom SRR
Robiatun Awang, Wayne Rowe
Wayne Rowe, Rmit Univ., Australia
A fluidic split ring resonator (SRR) is proposed to achieve frequency tunability. An integrated microfluidic channel is employed in between the gaps of the fluidic SRR to harness pneumatic tuning by air injection/suction. An experimental investigation demonstrates that a frequency tuning of 3% can be achieved using air as the manipulating force to induce a small deflection in the SRR gap.
TUIF2-7	: Fabrication of Waveguide Butler Matrix for Short Millimeter-Wave Using X-Ray Lithography
Mitsuyoshi Kishihara, Akinobu Yamaguchi, Yuichi Utsumi, Isao Ohta
Mitsuyoshi Kishihara, Okayama Prefectural University, Japan
The microfabrication technique based on X-ray lithography has recently been applied to construct PTFE-based microstructures. This paper attempts to fabricate an integrated waveguide Butler matrix for short millimeter-wave using X-ray lithography. First, a cruciform 3-dB directional coupler and an intersection circuit are designed at 180 GHz. Then, a 4x4 butler matrix with horn antennas is designed and fabricated. Finally, the measured radiation patterns of the Butler matrix are shown.
TUIF2-8	: Design, Fabrication and Characterization of Compact 4-Bit RF MEMS Capacitor Bank in Standard CMOS 0.35µm Process
Ahmed Abdel Aziz, Raafat Mansour
Ahmed Abdel Aziz, Univ. of Waterloo, Canada
This paper reports on the design and fabrication of a 4-bit switched capacitor bank designed to operate over the frequency range of 3-10 GHz with a tuning range of up to 10:1. An opti-mized mask-less CMOS post-processing technique is used to fabricate the 0.6 mm x 0.9 mm capacitor bank. A procedure employing dry etching with cryogenic cooling is proposed to tune the residual stress in the beams. The capacitor was ana-lyzed both theoretically and experimentally. The analysis of the measured Q suggests an approach to enhance the capacitor's Q. The measured results demonstrate the 16 different states covering the range of 0.15-1.2 pF with no sign of self-resonance up to 10 GHz.
TUIF2-9	: Impact of Metallization on Performance of Plasmonic Photoconductive Terahertz Emitters
Deniz Turan, Sofia Carolina Corzo-Garcia, Enrique Castro-Camus, Mona Jarrahi
Deniz Turan, Univ. of California, Los Angeles, United States
Use of plasmonic contact electrodes in photoconductive emitters is very effective for generating high terahertz powers. This is because plasmonic electrodes concentrate a major portion of photo-generated carriers in their close proximity when excited by an incident optical pump beam. As a result, a large number of photocarriers are drifted to the terahertz radiating elements of the emitter within a sub-picosecond time-scale to efficiently contribute to terahertz generation. Au is a desired choice of metal for plasmonic contact electrodes due to its strong plasmonic enhancement factors at near-infrared wavelengths. However, it requires an adhesion layer to stick well to device substrates. We show that optical and electrical characteristics of the Au adhesion layer have significant impact on performance of plasmonic photo-conductive terahertz emitters. We demonstrate that use of Cr adhesion layer instead of Ti, which is used in existing plasmonic terahertz emitters, offers 50% enhancement in the generated terahertz power.
TUIF2-10	: Lens-Integrated Asymmetric-Dual-Grating-Gate High-Electron-Mobility-Transistor for Plasmonic Terahertz Detection
Tomotaka Hosotani, Fuzuki Kasuya, Hiroki Taniguchi, Takayuki Watanabe, Tetsuya Suemitsu, Taiichi Otsuji, Tadao Ishibashi, Makoto Shimizu, Akira Satou
Tomotaka Hosotani, Tohoku Univ., Japan
Asymmetric-dual-grating-gate high-electron-mobility-transistors (ADGG-HEMTs) are expected for high responsivity, room-temperature operating and high-speed THz detectors. However, their low light coupling efficiency is one of the serious concerns because of the large focused spot size of free space THz wave. To improve this, we examine shrinking the THz wave spot size by integrating a detector with a hyper-hemispherical silicon lens. We report the 6-fold enhancement by the silicon lens integration. Also, we show the incident THz wave frequency characteristic of the detector module is a product of the internal responsivity of ADGG-HEMTs and the light coupling efficiency by the silicon lens.
TUIF2-11	: PAM-4 Receiver With Integrated Linear TIA and 2-Bit ADC in 0.13 µm SiGe:C BiCMOS for High-Speed Optical Communications
Iria Garcia Lopez, Pedro Rito, Cagri Ulusoy, Ahmed Awny, Dietmar Kissinger
Iria Garcia Lopez, IHP Microelectronics, Germany
The design and characterization of an optical receiver and demodulator for PAM-4 encoded data signals is presented. The prototype, fabricated in 0.13 µm SiGe:C BiCMOS technology, comprises a linear TIA followed by a 2-bit flash ADC, and is designed to support 100 Gb/s data rate while dissipating 650 mW. The TIA stage features 54 dBΩ differential transimpedance, 60 GHz bandwidth and less than 12 pA/√Hz average input referred current noise density. The module was measured to receive up to 24 GBd (setup-limited) PAM-4 PRBS7 signals at a BER of 4E-12 and 1E-13 for the LSB and MSB, respectively, with input amplitude of 580 µApp. Clear NRZ eye diagrams up to 50 Gb/s are reported, demonstrating the high-speed operation capability. The integration of TIA and dedicated ADC in the same chip allows for a custom design, optimized in terms of power dissipation and footprint, for the next generation optical transceivers.
TUIF2-12	: A 680 MHz to 4 GHz 4RX-1TX SoC for Cognitive Radio Applications
Tajinder Manku, Oleksiy Kravets, Anith Selvakumar, Chris Beg, Karanvir Chattha, Don Dattani, Stephen Devison, Tim Magnusen, Nebu Mathai, John McGinn, Zohaib Moti, Marco Nogueira, Trevor Pace, Mike Ravkine, Rahul Singh, Chris Snyder, William Suriaputra, Volodymyr Yavorskyy
Tajinder Manku, Cognitive Systems Corp, Canada
As wireless technology continues to grow, new intelligent systems will be needed to help organize, manage, and interact with the surrounding RF environment. Such systems are based on a cognitive radio, where a device can learn and adapt to its RF environment. Motion detection, cybersecurity and spectrum sharing are few examples of such applications. However, for widespread adoption of such systems to be feasible, they must be small, cost-effective, maintainable, and offer high performance with low power consumption. Presented in this paper is a fully integrated cognitive radio platform, capable of RX/TX functionality from 680MHz to 4GHz. The platform is based on a custom SoC (40nm CMOS), which combines a wideband transceiver with a highly-accelerated digital vector processor and microprocessor for real-time signal analysis and application execution. Companion to the SoC are up to 16 specialized front-end ASICs (180nm SiGe) used for gain and band selection.
TUIF2-13	: Demonstration of a Hybrid Self-Tracking Receiver With DoA-Estimation for Retro-Directive Antenna Systems
Andreas Winterstein, Achim Dreher
Andreas Winterstein, German Aerospace Center, Germany
Recent studies have proposed self-tracking receiver systems with direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation based on phase-locked loops (PLLs). Up to now, such a system has not been implemented. In this work, we present a hybrid hardware setup combing analog and digital signal processing, which provides this functionality. Successful phase detection and DOA estimation are demonstrated. The observed pointing errors are below 4.0°. The presented results are the proof-of-concept for the self-tracking receiver architecture. This technique can be directly applied to build retro-directive antennas (RDAs).
TUIF2-14	: A 950 MHz RF 20 MHz Bandwidth Direct RF Sampling Bit Streamer Receiver Based on an FPGA
Noriaki Tawa, Tomoya Kaneko
Noriaki Tawa, NEC Corp., Japan
A 950 MHz direct RF sampling bit streamer receiver architecture based on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) is presented. In proposed architecture, an RF input signal is divided into the envelope and phase detectors. They are directly converted to two 1 bit streams using multi-gigabit transceivers on an FPGA, then are reconstructed into I/Q signal in an FPGA. The measured error vector magnitudes are 2.7 % and 8.4 % for QPSK 5 MHz and 64-QAM 20 MHz input signals respectively. The architecture provides major benefits of eliminating ADC devices, simplifying the inter-connection of RF front-end devices to digital base band and cutting the power consumption significantly for the multi-channel RF systems.
TUIF2-16	: Inkjet-Printed Antenna-Electronics Interconnections in Passive UHF RFID Tags
Han He, Jun Tajima, Lauri Sydänheimo, Hiroshi Nishikawa, Leena Ukkonen, Johanna Virkki
Johanna Virkki, Tampere Univ. of Technology, Finland
We outline the possibilities of inkjet printing in fabrication of passive UHF RFID tag antennas and antenna-electronics interconnections on paper and polyimide substrates. In our method, the silver nanoparticle tag antenna is deposited directly on top of the IC fixture, in order to simplify the manufacturing process by removing one step, i.e., the IC attachment with conductive glue. Our wireless measurement results confirm that the manufactured RFID tags with the printed antenna-IC interconnections achieve peak read ranges of 8.5-10 meters, which makes them comparable to traditional tags with epoxy-glued ICs.
TUIF2-17	: A Humidity Sensor Based on V-Band Slotted Waveguide Antenna Array
David Hotte, Romain Siragusa, Yvan Duroc, Smail Tedjini
Smail Tedjini, Univ. Grenoble Alpes, France
The paper presents the design of a new type of humidity sensor-tag operating in V-band. The proposed design combines the humidity sensitive properties of Kapton and a slotted waveguide antenna array. Design methodology is highlighted. Simulation and experimental results are reported which validate the design procedure and show promising perspectives.
TUIF2-18	: Micrometric Displacement Sensor Based on Chipless RFID
Etienne Perret
Etienne Perret, Grenoble Institute of Technology, France
In this paper a chipless RFID tag has been used to realized displacement measurements. Displacements of 100 μm can be monitored with this technique coming from chipless RFID. Tagged objects can thus be identified and their displace-ments can be monitored at the same time with accuracy of a few microns.
TUIF2-19	: HEMT Based RF to DC Converter Efficiency Enhancement Using Special Designed Waveforms
Ricardo Correia, Nuno Carvalho
Nuno Carvalho, Instituto De Telecomunicacoes, Portugal
In this paper a single and a dual band rectifier based on an Enhancement-mode Pseudomorphic High Electron Mobility Transistor (E-pHEMT) are proposed. Both rectifiers were designed with E-pHEMT devices with unbiased gates. This circuits were optimized to have high efficiencies at high power values, and are suited for high power wireless power transmitter approaches, due to its higher robustness when compared with diode based solutions. On top of this the use of special designed waveforms, specially multisine type signals will be evaluated to increase the efficiency range at lower powers.
TUIF2-20	: Differentially-Fed Charge Pumping Rectifier Design With an Enhanced Efficiency for Ambient RF Energy Harvesting
Hao Zhang, Zheng Zhong, Yongxin Guo, Wen Wu
Hao Zhang, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, China
In this paper, a differentially-fed charge pumping rectifier design is presented with an enhanced efficiency for ambient RF energy harvesting. Due to the differential signals induced by a delicately designed rat-race coupler, circuit topology of the modified Greinacher rectifier is simplified with an enhanced RF-to-dc power conversion efficiency (PCE) over low power ranges. Meanwhile, high output DC voltage is sustained for the requirements of an efficient DC-DC boosting converter. Results of simulation and measurement validate that an enhanced efficiency of more than 5% is achieved over ultralow power ranges from -20dBm to -10dBm and the output DC voltage sustains with its amplitude more than 0.7V at incident power of -10dBm.
TU3A:
State of the Art in Cryogenic Low Noise Amplifiers
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
This session presents the latest developments of advanced cryogenic technologies for low noise amplifiers. This session starts with the results of a wide-band cryogenic SiGe MMIC LNA with an average noise temperature of 2.8K from 0.2 to 3.0 GHz. This is followed by a sub-milliwatt SiGe LNA from 4 to 8 GHz. Next, the low noise performance is given for a cryogenic LNA SKA band from 2 to 5 GHz. Following is the description of a unique development of a 2 finger InP HEMT design that results in stable cryogenic operation of a ultra-low noise Ka band LNA. Then, a cryogenic mm-wave LNA for V-band with noise temperature from 18 to 27K between 50 and 75 GHz is presented. Finally, a cryogenic W-band ALMA band 2+3 with an average noise temperature of 24K will conclude the session.
TU3A-1	: A Wideband Cryogenic SiGe LNA MMIC With an Average Noise Temperature of 2.8 K From 0.2–3 GHz
Su-Wei Chang, Joseph Bardin
Su-Wei Chang, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, United States
The design and characterization of a 0.3–3 GHz SiGe cryogenic low noise amplifier is presented. The integrated-circuit amplifier was implemented in the ST BiCMOS 9MW technology platform. At 15 K physical temperature, it achieves a gain greater than 22 dB, input and output return losses better than 10 dB, and an average noise temperature of 2.8 K over the 0.3–3 GHz frequency range. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this amplifier achieves the best noise performance reported to date for an integrated SiGe low noise amplifier.
TU3A-2	: A Sub-Milliwatt 4–8 GHz SiGe Cryogenic Low Noise Amplifier
Shirin Montazeri, Joseph Bardin
Shirin Montazeri, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, United States
A 4-8 GHz Silicon-Germanium (SiGe) cryogenic low-noise amplifier (LNA) was designed and implemented using GF BiCMOS8HP process. The amplifier provides 30-dB and 26-dB of gain while dissipating 760 μW and 580 μW DC power, respectively. The noise temperature is approximately 8K across the frequency band. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the lowest reported power to date for a wide-band cryogenic integrated circuit LNA in this frequency range.
TU3A-3	: Cryogenic LNAs for SKA Band 2 to 5
Joel Schleeh, Giuseppe Moschetti, Niklas Wadefalk, Eunjung Cha, Arsalan Pourkabirian, Göran Alestig, John Halonen, Bengt Nilsson, Per-Ake Nilsson, Jan Grahn
Joel Schleeh, Low Noise Factory, Sweden
Four ultra-low noise cryogenic MMIC LNAs suitable for the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) band 2 to 5 (0.95 – 13.8 GHz) have been designed, fabricated, packaged and tested. The LNAs are based on 4x50, 8x50 and 16x50 µm HEMTs, designed for stable cryogenic operation, allowing the combination of good noise performance and return loss. The lowest noise temperatures measured in the four bands were 1.0 K, 1.2 K, 1.6 K and 2.6 K, respectively.
TU3A-4	: Two-Finger InP HEMT Design for Stable Cryogenic Operation of Ultra-Low-Noise Ka-Band LNAs
Eunjung Cha, Giuseppe Moschetti, Niklas Wadefalk, Per-Ake Nilsson, Stella Bevilacqua, Arsalan Pourkabirian, Piotr Starski, Jan Grahn
Eunjung Cha, Chalmers Univ. of Technology, Sweden
We have investigated the cryogenic stability of two-finger InP HEMTs aimed for Ka-band ultra-low noise amplifiers (LNAs). Unlike two-finger transistors with a large gate-width above 2 x 50 µm, the transistors with a small gate-width exhibit unstable cryogenic behavior. The instability is suppressed by adding a source air-bridge. The stabilizing effect of the air-bridge is demonstrated both on device and circuit level. A three-stage 24–40 GHz monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) LNA using a stabilized 100-nm HEMT technology is presented. The amplifier achieves a record noise temperature of 7 K at 25.6 GHz with an average noise of 10.6 K across the whole band at an ambient temperature of 5.5 K. The amplifier gain is 29 dB ± 0.6 dB exhibiting very stable and repeatable operation. To our knowledge, this amplifier presents the lowest noise temperature reported so far for InP cryogenic LNAs covering the Ka-band.
TU3A-5	: Cryogenic MMIC Low-Noise Amplifiers for V-Band
Mikko Varonen, Lorene Samoska, Pekka Kangaslahti, Andy Fung, Rohit Gawande, Mary Soria, Alejandro Peralta, Robert Lin, Richard Lai, Xiaobing Mei, Stephen Sarkozy
Mikko Varonen, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Finland
In this paper we report ultra-low-noise amplifier modules and amplifier module chains for V-band (50-75 GHz). The amplifier chips were fabricated in a 35-nm InP HEMT technology and packaged in WR15 waveguide housings utilizing alumina E-plane waveguide probes. The amplifier modules achieve 18 to 27 K noise temperatures from 50 to 75 GHz when cryogenically cooled to 21 K. When measured through a mylar vacuum window, a cascade of two amplifier modules achieves a receiver noise temperature of 18.5 K at 58 GHz. A second chain has a measured receiver noise temperature between 20 to 28 K for the whole V-band. To the best of authors' knowledge these are the lowest LNA noise temperatures for V-Band reported to date.
TU3A-6	: Cryogenic W-Band LNA for ALMA Band 2+3 With Average Noise Temperature of 24 K
Yulung Tang, Niklas Wadefalk, Jacob Kooi, Joel Schleeh, Giuseppe Moschetti, Jan Grahn, Per-Åke Nilsson, Arsalan Pourkabirian, Eunjung Cha, Silvia Tuzi
Yulung Tang, Low Noise Factory AB, Taiwan
A cryogenic low noise amplifier that operates across the E and W-bands, from 65 GHz to 116 GHz, has been developed using 0.1-μm InP HEMT technology. Such wideband performance makes this work suitable for the ALMA telescope where two of its bands, 67-90 GHz of Band 2 and 85-116 GHz of Band 3, can be combined into one. At an ambient temperature of 5.5 K, this Wband LNA demonstrates an average noise temperature of 24.7 K with more than 21 dB gain and +/- 3.0 dB gain flatness from 65 GHz to 116 GHz. To the best knowledge of the authors, this combination of bandwidth, gain flatness and noise temperature has not been demonstrated before.
TU3B:
Innovative Waveguide Components
Technische Univ. Darmstadt
Chung-Tse Michael Wu
Wayne State Univ.
This session presents a number of innovative waveguide solutions for RF, microwave and mm-wave applications. In particular, tunable devices based on liquid crystals and substrate integrated waveguides are discussed. New design techniques for high density integration and planar waveguide fabrication are evaluated in terms of feasibility and performance.
TU3B-1	: Design of a Continuously Tunable W-Band Phase Shifter in Dielectric Waveguide Topology
Roland Reese, Matthias Jost, Holger Maune, Rolf Jakoby
Roland Reese, Technische Univ. Darmstadt, Germany
This work presents a liquid crystal (LC) based phase shifter in a dielectric waveguide (DW) topology consisting of core and cladding for the W-band. For continuous tunability, a part of the core material is replaced by liquid crystal. Furthermore, suggestions of materials for designing such a DW, i.e. for core and cladding, are given in this paper. In comparison to other topologies, the advantage of this topology is that the necessary electric biasing can be realized easily, by placing electrodes directly on the cladding. With an electric biasing of +-550V, a maximum differential phase shift of 430°, accompanied with insertion losses between 2.8 to 5.5 dB with standard WR10 connections, could be achieved. The maximum figure of merit is around 100 °/dB at 102 GHz.
TU3B-2	: Interference Based W-Band Single-Pole Double-Throw With Tunable Liquid Crystal Based Waveguide Phase Shifters
Matthias Jost, Roland Reese, Sönke Schmidt, Matthias Nickel, Holger Maune, Rolf Jakoby
Matthias Jost, Technische Univ. Darmstadt, Germany
This work presents an interference based W-band single-pole double-throw (SPDT) in rectangular waveguide and liquid crystal technology. In radiometers, this kind of SPDT can be used e.g. for switching to the calibration load for power calibration. The SPDT is designed with an E-plane power divider, two different paths for the phase shifting regions, being separated by 30mm to provide enough space for the used magnets for proof-of-concept, and a coupled line combiner, where the interference is taking place. Rexolite 1422 is serving as liquid crystal cavity. The matching is better than −12 dB between 88 GHz to 110 GHz, except a peak around 102 GHz. The insertion loss is less than 3 dB between 89GHz to 105 GHz, while exhibiting an isolation of at least 9 dB in this frequency range. From 90GHz to 100 GHz, isolation is even between 10 dB to 12 dB.
TU3B-3	: In-Plane Hollow Waveguide Crossover Based on Dielectric Insets for Millimeter-Wave Applications
Matthias Jost, Roland Reese, Holger Maune, Rolf Jakoby
This paper presents an in-plane hollow waveguide crossover for W-band frequencies. It can be implemented e.g. into a Butler matrix, to simplify the fabrication process significantly. It is based on a partially dielectric filling of the waveguide, focussing the field in the center. The dielectric is placed in the center of a hollow waveguide crossing and has a star-shape. Inside the dielectric filled region, a higher order mode propagation is possible, which has no significant influence on the overall performance of the crossover. It shows an insertion loss between 0.8 dB to 1.0 dB in the frequency range of 100 GHz to 109 GHz, while the matching is better than −12 dB and even down to −30 dB at 108 GHz. The isolated ports show transmission coefficients better than −20 dB in the frequency range between 99 dB to 109 dB and even down to −40 dB around 107 GHz.
TU3B-4	: A Low Loss and Self-Packaged Patch Coupler Based on SISL Platform
Yongqiang Wang, Kaixue Ma, Shouxian Mou
Yongqiang Wang, Univ. of Electronic Science and Technology of China, China
This paper proposes a low loss and self-packaged patch coupler based on substrate integrated suspended line (SISL) platform. Due to the benefit of self-packaging, the radiation loss of the patch can be reduced to the minimum. By cutting out the sub-strate as much as possible while ensuring mechanical strength, the dielectric loss will be further reduced. By connecting the metal layers on both sides of the substrate with via holes, the conductor loss can be further reduced. The measurement results and the simulation results of the fabricated SISL patch coupler at 6 GHz are well agreed. The measured insertion loss is only around 0.15 dB. From 5.5 GHz to 6.6 GHz, the measured phase imbalance is 90°±1° and the measured amplitude imbalance is smaller than 0.6 dB. The measured loss is much smaller than that of the previous designs.
TU3B-5	: High Performance Air-Filled Substrate Integrated Waveguide Filter Post-Process Tuning Using Capacitive Post
Tifenn Martin, Anthony Ghiotto, Tan Phu Vuong, Frédéric Lotz, Pierre Monteil
Tifenn Martin, Univ. of Bordeaux, France
This paper presents an air-filled substrate integrated waveguide (AFSIW) filter post-process tuning technique. The emerging high-performance AFSIW technology is of high interest for the de-sign of microwave substrate integrated systems based on low-cost multilayer printed circuit board process. However, to comply with stringent specifica-tions, especially for spatial, aeronautical and safety applica-tions, a filter post-process tuning technic is desired. AFSIW single pole filter post-process tuning using a capacitive post is theoretically analyzed. It is demonstrated that a tuning of more than 3% of the resonant frequency is achieved at 21 GHz using a 0.3 mm radius post with a 40% insertion ratio. For experi-mental demonstration, a fourth-order AFSIW bandpass filter operating in the 20.88 to 21.11 GHz band is designed. Due to fabrication tolerances, it is shown that its performances are not in line with expected results. Using capacitive post tuning, char-acteristics are improved and agree with optimized results.
TU3C:
Wearable Systems and Enabling Technologies for Internet of Things (IoT)
Vijay Nair
Kavita Goverdhanam
US Army CERDEC
This session focuses on enabling technologies and system level considerations for advancing wearable electronics for IoT applications. Topics include system analysis of wireless sensor nodes, frequency-reconfigurable fabric antennas, bio-monitoring systems, stretchable microwave devices and envelope detectors for IoE sensor network applications.
TU3C-1	: In-Sensor Analytics and Energy-Aware Self-Optimization in a Wireless Sensor Node
Ningyuan Cao, Saad Bin Nasir, Shreyas Sen, Arijit Raychowdhury
Ningyuan Cao, Georgia Institute of Technology, United States
Abstract—With the proliferation of distributed sensors and In- ternet of Thing end-nodes, aggregate data transfer to the back- end servers in the cloud is expected to become prohibitively large which not only results in network congestion, but also high energy expenditure of sensor nodes. This motivates in-situ data analytics that can perform context-aware acquisition and processing of data; and transmit data only when required. This paper presents a camera based wireless sensor node with in-sensor computation and wireless communication and end-to-end system optimization. Depending on the amount of information content and wireless channel quality, the system chooses the minimum-energy operating- point by dynamically adjusts processing depth (PD) and power amplifier (PA) gain while reducing data volume the network has to handle. We demonstrate a complete end-to-end system and measure 3.7× reduction in energy consumption compared to a baseline design where only rudimentary image compression is performed.
TU3C-2	: A Varactor-Tuned Frequency-Reconfigurable Fabric Antenna Embedded in Polymer: Assessment of Suitability for Wearable Applications
Roy B. V. B. Simorangkir, Yang Yang, Karu Esselle, Yinliang Diao
Roy B. V. B. Simorangkir, Macquarie Univ., Australia
In this paper, we present a novel class of wearable antennas that are flexible, electronically tunable, and robust. They consist of conductive fabric parts, used as the radiator, with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) polymer utilized to form the substrate as well as the full encapsulation of the radiator including its electronic tuning elements. To validate the concept, a prototype that provides frequency tuning from 2.3 to 2.65 GHz has been fabricated and tested. The fabrication process is detailed and experimental investigations on its suitability for wearable applications are presented. To assess the antenna robustness, its reconfigurability under severe physical deformations has been studied through washing the antenna and also by wrapping it on the head and wrist of a UWB human muscle equivalent phantom. The antenna's effect on body has also been investigated through Specific Absorption Rate measurement. The results confirm that the antenna is a promising candidate for modern wearable devices.
TU3C-3	: Wearable Sensors Based on a High Sensitive Complementary Split-Ring Resonator for Accurate Cardiorespiratory Sign Measurements
Ta-Chung Chang, Chia-Ming Hsu, Kuan-Wei Chen, Chin-Lung Yang
Chin-Lung Yang, National Cheng Kung Univ., Taiwan
This paper presents a novel wearable complementary split-ring resonator (CSRR) sensor for smart clothing to measure cardiorespiratory signs. The cardiorespiratory vital signs can be measured in the frequency and amplitude deviations of CSRR caused by the slight displacement from the chest. The heart signals can be extracted from the respiratory signals simultaneously by using a high sensitive CSRR sensor. Based on the proposed approach, the heartbeat can be significantly compared with traditional vital sign detection. Experiment results reveal that the CSRR can determine accurately the physiological signals. From the tracking resonant frequency and amplitude S21, the heartbeat rate and respiratory rate has errors of 0.01% and 0.04%, respectively. At a fixed frequency of 1.1 GHz, cardiorespiratory signals are measured to achieve low error of 0.01%. The proposed method is promising for healthcare applications.
TU3C-4	: Characterization of Stretchable Serpentine Microwave Devices for Wearable Electronics
Tammy Chang, Casey Wojcik, Yewang Su, John Rogers, Thomas Lee, Jonathan Fan
Tammy Chang, Stanford Univ., United States
Serpentine interconnects, made stretchable by patterning copper traces into serpentine mesh geometries, are attractive for applications in wearable electronics. This paper studies the suitability of these structures for wireless devices at microwave frequencies, where the sub-wavelength dimensions of the serpentine pattern contribute to changes in electrical length and propagation loss. The effects of converting solid metal traces to serpentine geometries are quantified for microwave transmission lines and dipole antennas. In addition, the effects of stretching are characterized and measured for a fabricated dipole antenna.
TU3C-5	: Analysis of Quadratic Dickson Based Envelope Detectors for IoE Sensor Node Applications
Pouyan Bassirian, Jesse Moody, Steven Bowers
Pouyan Bassirian, Univ. of Virginia, United States
This paper presents a study of passive Dickson based envelope detectors operating in the quadratic small signal regime, specifically intended to be used in RF front end of sensing units of IoE sensor nodes. Critical parameters such as charge time, open-circuit voltage sensitivity (OCVS), input impedance, and output noise are studied and simplified circuits models are proposed to predict the behavior of the detector, resulting in practical design intuitions. There is good agreement between model predictions, simulation results and measurements of 14 representative test structures that were fabricated in a RF CMOS 130nm process.
TU3D:
Emerging Space Systems and Associated Technology
Mohamed Abouzahra
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lincoln Laboratory
Rudy Emrick
Orbital ATK
Emerging small satellite systems technologies will be presented. Discussed application areas include remote sensing and U.S. Army applications. In addition, small satellite design for security and enabling technologies for small satellite maneuverability will be highlighted.
TU3D-1	: Evolution and Maturation of Small Space Microwave Technologies for U.S. Army Applications
Mason Nixon, Mark Ray, John London III
Mason Nixon, US Army SMDC/ARSTRAT, United States
Key factors in the utility of small satellites are the responsiveness of orbiting space assets, the cost savings over larger, more durable satellites, and the potential benefit to the tactical user. As electronics and RF technologies become increas-ingly compact and more capable, small satellites offer many ad-vantages over their larger counterparts from technology refresh rate and timely access for the tactical user to significantly reduced launch costs. This paper reviews several small satellite-related development efforts for tactical military applications with an emphasis on the communications technologies being matured.
TU3D-2	: Technology Development for Small Satellite Microwave Atmospheric Remote Sensing
William Blackwell
William Blackwell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lincoln Laboratory, United States
Recent advances in low-power millimeterwave low-noise amplifier technologies have enabled the hosting of high-performance atmospheric sounding instruments on very small satellites.The Microsized Microwave Atmospheric Satellite, second generation (MicroMAS-2), will demonstrate temperature sounding near 118 GHz and moisture sounding near 183 GHz. MicroMAS-2a and MicroMAS-2b are scheduled to launch in 2017. The Microwave Radiometer Technology Acceleration (MiRaTA) cubesat will launch in 2017, and will fly a tri-band sounder (60, 183, and 206 GHz) and a GPS radio occultation (GPS-RO) sensor. Both MicroMAS and MiRaTA are 3U CubeSats. The Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) mission utilizes these technology advancements in a complete mission with approximately 12 CubeSats similar in capability to MicroMAS-2. TROPICS is expected to launch in 2020. The Earth Observing Nanosatellite-Microwave (EON) concept is a 12U CubeSat designed to provide most of the capabilities of current operational microwave sounders.
TU3D-3	: Design for Security: Guidelines for Efficient, Secure Small Satellite Computation
Kyle Ingols
Kyle Ingols, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lincoln Laboratory, United States
Historically, satellites have been built with large budgets and expensive, bespoke, "rad-hard" technology. For typical low Earth orbit missions, however, designers can now leverage commercial components to reduce cost and development time. Commercial processors provide these satellites with computational horsepower comparable to terrestrial desktop systems ... which leads to the temptation of terrestrial desktop software and all of the cyber security headaches and mistakes made in that realm over the years. We highlight key differences in processing environments, identify common tools for security design and application, and provide design guidelines that can lead to more secure on-orbit processing while remaining mindful of the overarching drumbeat of "smaller, faster, cheaper."
TU3D-4	: Enabling Microsatellite Maneuverability: A Survey of Microsatellite Propulsion Technologies
Robert Legge, Emily Clements, Adam Shabshelowitz, Laura Bayley
Laura Bayley, Masdar Institute of Science and Technology
Microsatellites, commonly defined as having a mass of less than 100kg, are being developed and launched with increasing frequency over the past decade. While this interest has led to rapid development of miniaturized electronics, communications and sensing components, microsatellites still lack significant maneuvering capability. Maneuverable microsatellites have the potential to allow for cost-effective satellite constellations, and disaggregated systems needing long-duration formation flying. This paper surveys and provides a performance comparison for some promising microsatellite propulsion technologies. Two recently developed propulsion technologies, green monopropellants and electrosprays, show great promise for increasing the maneuverability of severely volume and power constrained microsatellites.
TU3D-5	: A 666 GHz Demonstration Crosslink with 9.5 Gbps Data Rate
William Deal, Tyler Foster, Mark Wong, Matthew Dion, Kevin Leong, Xiao Bing Mei, Alexis Zamora, Kevin Kanemori, Louis Christen, Jack Tucek, Mark Basten, Kenneth Kreischer
William Deal, Northrop Grumman Corporation
Advanced GaN Transistor Modeling With Self-Heating and Trapping Effects
Paul Tasker
Shahed Reza
It is becoming very important that large signal models for GaN transistors can accurately account for self-heating and trapping effects. In this session, a range of solutions addressing this problem are presented encompassing both compact and physical model formulations.
TU3E-1	: Implementation of Self-Heating and Trapping Effects in Surface Potential Model of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs
Qingzhi Wu, Yuehang Xu, Zhigang Wang, Lei Xia, Jiang Hu, Bin Kong, Bo Yan, Ruimin Xu
Qingzhi Wu, Univ. of Electronic Science and Technology of China, China
The self-heating and charge trapping effects are implemented in surface-potential (SP) based large signal model of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs in this paper. The self-heating effect (SHE) is incorporated into nonlinear current model by embedding temperature increment into free-carrier mobility model. Moreover, the dispersion due to trapping effect is modeled through an effective gate-source voltage based methods. The experimental results show that the proposed model can accurately predict the static (DC) and pulsed-gate-and-drain IV (PIV) characteristics of the device over a wide bias. And the small-signal and large-signal behavior is also verified with good accuracy.
TU3E-2	: A Drain Lag Model for GaN HEMT Based on Chalmers Model and Pulsed S-Parameter Measurements
Peng Luo, Olof Bengtsson, Matthias Rudolph
Peng Luo, Ferdinand-Braun-Institut Leibniz-Institut für Höch, Germany
This paper addresses a novel approach account for trapping effects in the large-signal description of GaN HEMTs. Instead of relying on an internal effective gate voltage, which is not very intuitive, it is investigate how the Chalmers (Angelov) model parameters are altered by trapping. It is verified that such an approach enables reliable load-pull prediction over a wide range of drain bias voltages. In addition, appropriately scaled parameters are shown to allow for a good estimation of large-signal performance even if the model itself misses a dedicated trapping description.
TU3E-3	: Extraction of a Trapping Model Over an Extended Bias Range for GaN and GaAs HEMTs
Jabra Tarazi, James Rathmell, Anthony Parker, Simon Mahon
Anthony Parker, Macquarie Univ., Australia
A simple procedure for extracting parameters of a bias-dependent trap model for GaN and GaAs is presented. The extraction is achieved based on a mapping of the steady-state trap-center potential for a representative range of the bias voltages. The circuit model of trapping is verified in the process. The time constant for emission is also extracted. It is demonstrated that the model is able to predict device response and time constants in both capture and emission states. Bias-dependence of trapping and associated time constants is successfully modeled.
TU3E-4	: A Temperature Dependent Empirical Model for AlGaN/GaN HEMTs Including Charge Trapping and Self-Heating Effects
An-Dong Huang, Zheng Zhong, Yong-Xin Guo, Wen Wu
An-Dong Huang, National Univ. of Singapore, Singapore
This paper presents a temperature dependent empirical model for GaN HEMTs with the consideration of charge trapping and self-heating effects. A new 13-element drain current source (Ids) model is proposed. The current dispersion deduced by trapping and thermal effects is generally modeled by Taylor expansion, and for the first time, the dispersion related coefficients are rigorously derived to be the combination of analytical Ids functions. The Ids model is manifested by the accurate prediction of massive measured PIVs with various quiescent biases and power dissipation. The large signal model is implemented in Advanced Design System (ADS), and the simulations of both DC and RF characteristics well agree with the measurements
TU3E-5	: A New Compact Model for AlGaN/GaN HEMTs Including Self-Heating Effects
Zhang Wen, Yuehang Xu, Qingzhi Wu, Yong Zhang, Ruimin Xu, Bo Yan
Zhang Wen, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, China
This paper presents a new compact electrothermal model for GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs). An analytic and succinct expression for the drain current Ids is acquired by combining surface potential based method and channel division method. Self-heating effects are described in the model by intro-ducing an empirical expression for the critical electric field Ec as a function of temperature and gate voltage. The presented I-V model can accurately fit DC measurements. Furthermore, good agreement between RF simulations and measurements can be achieved by substituting the I-V model in this paper for the original Ids module in a compact large-signal model.
3-D Tunable and Reconfigurable Filters
Eric Naglich
Univ. of Central Florida
This session showcases several distributed tunable and reconfigurable filters utilizing metal and substrate-integrated waveguide resonators. A new topology for highly-reconfigurable filters that can be reconfigured between bandpass, bandstop, and filter cascade functions will be discussed in addition to filters that provide absorptive, balun, and constant absolute bandwidth functionality. A high-Q, many-state waveguide iris reconfiguration technique will also be presented. Finally, a miniaturization technique for tunable cavity filters using the TE211 mode will be described.
TU3F-1	: K-Band Tunable Cavity Filter Using Dual TE211 Mode
Changsoo Kwak, Manseok Uhm, Inbok Yom
Changsoo Kwak, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Instit, Korea, Republic of
In this paper, a K-band tunable cavity resonator filter is intro-duced. The tunable filter uses a dual TE211 mode cavity to reduce the size of the filter. To improve the tuning range of a pseudo-low pass filter that uses short irises, dummy iris is introduced. To enhance selectivity at band edge, additional cavity is introduced. A transmission zero generated by the additional cavity is con-trolled by only the cavity. To extend the rejection band, we use interaction between TE211 mode and adjacent modes. We fabri-cate and test the two-cavity, three-transmission zero tunable fil-ters to verify the design results.
TU3F-2	: A Four-State Iris Waveguide Bandpass Filter With Switchable Irises
Liang Gong, King Yuk Chan, Rodica Ramer
Liang Gong, Univ. of New South Wales, Australia
This paper proposed a new scheme of switching high-Q waveguide iris bandpass filters into different bands without using bulky components. Instead of constructing the filter using only metal, our design presents an assemblage of individual waveguide resonant cavities and dielectric substrate laminates integrated with RF MEMS switches. As a demonstration of the concept, a two-pole filter with four switchable passbands centered from 12.4 GHz to 14.6 GHz (18% of tunable range) with equal bandwidth has been presented. An unloaded Q-factor better than 1700 has been achieved for each state. The switches, with three different dimensions, can be actuated by three different pull-in voltages. This allows biasing them, by a single bias signal, into various states where the characteristics of the inverters are reconfigured, resulting in shifts of the passband.
TU3F-3	: A 1.9–2.6 GHz Filter With Both Bandpass-to-Bandstop Reconfigurable Function and Bandpass-and-Bandstop Cascading Function
Tao Yang, Gabriel Rebeiz
Tao Yang, Univ. of California, San Diego, China
In this paper, a novel tunable filter with multiple tuning functions is proposed. The filter can be used as a 4th-order bandpass-to-bandstop reconfigurable filter for passband or stopband tuning, and also as a 2nd-order bandpass filter cascaded by a 2nd-order bandstop filter for passband tuning with controllable transmission zeroes. In each mode, both the frequency and bandwidth can be controlled within a wide range, demonstrating excellent tuning flexibility and capabilities. The filter topology is expected to find applications in modern wireless standards such as carrier aggregation and cognitive radios.
TU3F-4	: Constant-Absolute-Bandwidth Frequency-Tunable Half-Mode SIW Filter Containing No Tunable Coupling Structures
Seunggoo Nam, Boyoung Lee, Juseop Lee
Seunggoo Nam, Korea Univ., Korea, Republic of
A new half-mode frequency-tunable SIW (substrate-integrated waveguide) bandpass filter with a constant absolute bandwidth is presented in this paper. For achieving the constant bandwidth, we have developed new external and internal coupling structures capable of exhibiting specified coupling values over the frequency tuning range of the presented filter. Hence, the presented filter employs no tuning components in the coupling structures and this avoids the insertion loss increase due to tuning components. For verification, a second-order filter has been designed, fabricated, and measured. The filter has the insertion loss smaller than 2.0 dB over the frequency tuning range from 1.85 GHz to 2.3 GHz. The bandwidth slightly varies from 136 MHz to 142 MHz.
TU3F-5	: L-Band High-Q Tunable Quasi-Absorptive Bandstop-to-All-Pass Filter
Wei Yang, Mark Hickle, Dimitra Psychogiou, Dimitrios Peroulis
Wei Yang, Purdue Univ., United States
This paper presents a high-Q tunable quasi-absorptive band-stop-to-all-pass filter in the 1.1 to 2 GHz frequency range. The filter can continuously tune from an all-pass response to an ab-sorptive bandstop response with high isolation (70 dB) across its entire frequency range. The insertion loss in its all-pass state var-ies from 2.27 to 3.14 dB. The filter topology requires only one tuning element per resonator. The filter topology is implemented with evanescent-mode cavity resonators and tuned with low-power piezoelectric actuators. The extracted unloaded resonator Q-factor is 400.
TU3F-6	: A Widely-Tunable Substrate-Integrated Balun Filter
Mark Hickle, Dimitrios Peroulis
Mark Hickle, Purdue Univ., United States
A novel differential coupling structure for tunable evanescent-mode cavity resonators is presented in this paper. The coupling structure is very simple and compact, and presents no design or fabrication challenges relative to a comparable single-ended coupling structure. This new coupling structure is used to realize a high-performance 3-pole tunable balun bandpass filter, which integrates the functionalities of a tunable bandpass filter and a balanced-to-unbalanced transformer (balun). The filter tunes from 3.2 to 6.1 GHz, and has a nominally 2.4% 3-dB fractional bandwidth. It demonstrates state-of-the-art measured amplitude and phase balance among tunable balun filters, with less than 0.2 dB and 0.9 degrees of in-band amplitude and phase imbalance across its entire tuning range.
Functional Materials for RF and Microwave Control Applications
Tony Ivanov
Army Research Lab
Univ. of Michigan
This session covers functional materials for RF applications including phase-change materials, tunable & switchable dielectrics, and thin-film magnetic materials. Innovative Vanadium oxide switches are presented for mm-wave applications, and the state-of-the art in germanium telluride devices is also discussed, including new contributions relating to the power handling of these devices. A thick-film BST technology is introduced for potential application in the dynamic load modulation for GaN power amplifiers, and recent advances in thin-film BST for switchable acoustic resonators is reviewed. A novel isolator based on inket-deposited magnetic material is also included.
TU3G-1	: Fabrication and Characterization of VO2-Based Series and Parallel RF Switches
Junwen Jiang, Grigory Chugunov, Raafat Mansour
Junwen Jiang, Univ. of Waterloo, Canada
This paper presents two Vanadium Oxide (VO2)-based RF switches – one series switch and one parallel switch. A copper-based fabrication process used for fabricating the switches is described in details. The VO2 films of the fabricated switches are characterized with X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy to ensure optimal film quality. Simulations results are presented for both switches up to 75 GHz. The measured results demon-strate an insertion loss of better than 0.4 dB and an isolation close to 30 dB up to 20 GHz.
TU3G-2	: Thick-Film MIM BST Varactors for GaN Power Amplifiers With Discrete Dynamic Load Modulation
Sebastian Preis, Daniel Kienemund, Nikolai Wolff, Holger Maune, Rolf Jakoby, Wolfgang Heinrich, Olof Bengtsson
Sebastian Preis, Ferdinand-Braun-Institut, Germany
Due to their extremely low static current consumption, varactors based on BST are perfect devices for realization of tunable and re-configurable components. This work presents fully screen-printed MIM thick-film BST varactors used to tune the load impedance of GaN HEMTs. The varactor tuning voltage is supplied in discrete steps using a high-speed GaN-based modu-lator. Modulated measurements with LTE and WCDMA signals show, for the first time, the functionality of a BST-based load modulation system and the power consumption of the load-modulation in dynamic operation. Using discrete dynamic load modulation, an average PAE of 27.3% was measured for the LTE signal with an ACLR below -45 dB.
TU3G-3	: Recent Advances in Fabrication and Characterization of GeTe-Based Phase-Change RF Switches and MMICs
Pavel Borodulin, Nabil El-Hinnawy, Carlos Padilla, Matthew King, Daniel Johnson, Robert Young
Pavel Borodulin, Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, United States
Recent progress in device fabrication and characterization of GeTe-based phase-change RF switches has yielded switches with tens of thousands of switching cycles and μs-level switching times, bringing these switches one step closer to practical implementation into re-configurable MMICs and systems.
TU3G-4	: A Half Mode Inkjet Printed Tunable Ferrite Isolator
Farhan Abdul Ghaffar, Mohammad Vaseem, Joey Bray, Atif Shamim
Farhan Abdul Ghaffar, King Abdullah Univ. of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia
A novel half mode waveguide based ferrite isolator design is presented in this work. For the first time, tunability of the isolation band is demonstrated for a ferrite isolator. Instead of using the conventional antisymmetric bias isolator requires a single direction of magnetic bias field. YIG is used as the substrate for the device. The metallic walls of the waveguide are realized using inkjet printing. The magnetic biasing applied to the waveguide causes the RF waves to experience negative permeability in one direction of propagation hence providing isolation for this direction. For an applied bias of 3000 Oe, the device provides a maximum IFM of 76.7 dB at 7.5 GHz. The isolation band can be controlled by changing the applied magnetostatic bias. As the bias is varied from 1500 Oe to 3500 Oe the center frequency of the isolation band varies from 4.45 GHz to 9 GHz.
TU3G-5	: Investigation of ON-State Power Handing Dependence on Number of Cycles for Germanium Telluride RF Switches
Sami Hawasli, Leonard De La Cruz, Nabil El-Hinnawy, Pavel Borodulin, Mathew King, Robert Young, Mona Zaghloul, Tony Ivanov
Sami Hawasli, Army Research Lab, United States
The dependence of on-state Germanium Telluride (GeTe) RF power handing as a function of device cycling is presented. The data is also compared to computer based models in order to determine a possible method of failure at high RF input powers. The device is thermally actuated by an embedded Tungsten heater and tested at 1.8GHz. The measurements are compared to a computer based model. The data shows the power handling improves as the device is continually cycled. The results suggest the devices fail due to limiting the current's cross sectional area causing current crowding and excess heat generation.
TU3G-6	: High Qm×Kt2 Intrinsically Switchable BST Thin Film Bulk Acoustic Resonators
Milad Zolfagharloo Koohi, Seungku Lee, Amir Mortazawi
Milad Zolfagharloo Koohi, Univ. of Michigan, United States
Intrinsically switchable thin film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) based on Ba0.5Sr0.5TiO3 is designed and fabricated for a high Qm×Kt2 at the fundamental resonance mode. High Qm×Kt2 BST FBARs can be used to design low insertion loss switchable BAW filters. Measurement results for a BST FBAR show a resonator mechanical quality factor (Qm) of 360 at the series resonance frequency of 2 GHz with a mechanical coupling coefficient (Kt2) of 8.6%. Qm×Kt2 is calculated to be 30.8, and to the best of authors' knowledge, it is the highest value among the previously reported switchable BST resonators. The measured temperature coefficients of frequency (TCF) for the series and parallel resonance frequencies are -65 and -68 ppm/C, respectively. The negative TCF of the BST FBAR is partially compensated by addition of a SiO2 layer to the FBAR structure.
Integrated Circuits for Wireless Power Transfer
Alessandra Costanzo
Univ. di Bologna
Amin Rida
Energous
New High efficiency solutions, integrating antennas and ICs, are presented including implantable and wearable applications. Furthermore techniques combining data and Power Transfer are introduced.
TU3H-1	: A Wireless Power Receiver With an On-Chip Antenna for Millimeter-Size Biomedical Implants in 180 nm SOI CMOS
Hamed Rahmani, Aydin Babakhani
Hamed Rahmani, Rice Univ., United States
In this paper, we present a 3 GHz biphasic RF power harvesting system for biomedical wireless implantable applications. The design includes an on-chip loop antenna, a six-stage voltage rectifier, a low dropout voltage regulator, a power management unit (PMU), and an array of low-noise differential amplifiers for sensing bio potentials. The system is fabricated in a 180 nm SOI CMOS technology with a total area of 1.6×1.6 mm2 including an on-chip 1.2 nF storage capacitor. A power management unit with an average current consumption of 10 nA, which is 8× smaller than the state-of-the-art, divides the operation of the system into two different phases. The system is capable of delivering 1.21 mW to an external load that is fed by an on-chip voltage regulator.
TU3H-2	: A High-Efficiency Power Management IC With Power-Aware Multi-Path Rectifier for Wide-Range RF Energy Harvesting
Shu-Hsuan Lin, Chen-Yi Kuo, Shao-Yung Lu, Yu-Te Liao
Chen-Yi Kuo, National Chiao Tung Univ., Taiwan
A highly-integrated CMOS power-management system with wide-range RF for ultra-high frequency (UHF) wireless energy harvesting is presented. To avoid environment-caused sudden power loss and to scavenge energy efficiently, the proposed power management system adopts power-aware rectifier architecture and adaptive DC-DC conversion ratios according to the input power level. The proposed system was fabricated in a 0.18-μm CMOS process. The system achieved a peak RF/DC conversion efficiency of 59%, a sensitivity of -11.6dBm, and a 13.5dB RF input range for at least 20% power efficiency at a 100KΩ load. At the high input power region (>-9dBm), the proposed architecture improves to about 15% efficiency when compared to a conventional rectifier followed by a linear regulator. The peak efficiency of the entire system is 37%.
TU3H-3	: