• International journal of advanced smart convergence
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.81-88
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• 2021

This paper proposes two types of subharmonic RF receiver front-end (called LMV) where, in a single stage, quadrature voltage-controlled oscillator (QVCO) is stacked on top of a low noise amplifier. Since the QVCO itself plays the role of the single-balanced subharmonic mixer with the dc current reuse technique by stacking, the proposed topology can remove the RF mixer component in the RF front-end and thus reduce the chip size and the power consumption. Another advantage of the proposed topologies is that many challenges of the direct conversion receiver can be easily evaded with the subharmonic mixing in the QVCO itself. The intermediate frequency signal can be directly extracted at the center taps of the two inductors of the QVCO. Using a 65 nm complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology, the proposed subharmonic RF front-ends are designed. Oscillating at around 2.4 GHz band, the proposed subharmonic LMVs are compared in terms of phase noise, voltage conversion gain and double sideband noise figure. The subharmonic LMVs consume about 330 ㎼ dc power from a 1-V supply.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.595-604
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• 2016

Utilizing a standard 130-nm CMOS process, a RF frontend is designed at 24 GHz for automotive collision avoidance radar application. Single IF direct conversion receiver (DCR) architecture is adopted to achieve high integration level and to alleviate the DCR problem. The proposed frontend is composed of a two-stage LNA and downconversion mixers. To save power consumption, and to enhance gain and linearity, stacked NMOS-PMOS $g_m$-boosting technique is employed in the design of LNA as the first stage. The switch transistors in the mixing stage are biased in subthreshold region to achieve low power consumption. The single balanced mixer is designed in PMOS transistors and is also realized based on the well-known folded architecture to increase voltage headroom. This frontend circuit features enhancement in gain, linearity, and power dissipation. The proposed circuit showed a maximum conversion gain of 19.6 dB and noise figure of 3 dB at the operation frequency. It also showed input and output return losses of less than -10 dB within bandwidth. Furthermore, the port-to-port isolation illustrated excellent characteristic between two ports. This frontend showed the third-order input intercept point (IIP3) of 3 dBm for the whole circuit with power dissipation of 6.5 mW from a 1.5 V supply.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.49 no.8
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• pp.22-26
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• 2012

This paper introduces a 2.5-Gb/s optical receiver implemented in a standard 1P4M 0.18um CMOS technology for the applications of active optical HDMI cables. The optical receiver consists of a differential transimpedance amplifier(TIA), a five-stage differential limiting amplifier(LA), and an output buffer. The TIA exploits the inverter input configuration with a resistive feedback for low noise and power consumption. It is cascaded by an additional differential amplifier and a DC-balanced buffer to facilitate the following LA design. The LA consists of five gain cells, an output buffer, and an offset cancellation circuit. The proposed optical receiver demonstrates $91dB{\Omega}$ transimpedance gain, 1.55 GHz bandwidth even with the large photodiode capacitance of 320 fF, 16 pA/sqrt(Hz) average noise current spectral density within the bandwidth (corresponding to the optical sensitivity of -21.6 dBm for $10^{-12}$ BER), and 40 mW power dissipation from a single 1.8-V supply. Test chips occupy the area of $1.35{\times}2.46mm^2$ including pads. The optically measured eye-diagrams confirms wide and clear eye-openings for 2.5-Gb/s operations.

• Proceedings of the Korea Institute of Applied Superconductivity and Cryogenics Conference
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• 2002.02a
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• pp.358-361
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• 2002

The millirneterwave high-T$_{c}$ superconducting(HTS) down-converter sub-system with the HTS/III-V integrated mixer as the central device is demonstrated first. The constituent components of HTS down-converter sub-system such as a single balanced type integrated mixer with rat-race coupler, a cavity type bandpass filter (26 GHz), and a HTS planar lowpass filter(1 GHz), semiconductor LNA and IF-power amplifier, a driving electronic module for A/D converter, and a Stirling type mini-cooler module were combined into an International stand- and rack of 19-inch. From the RF(-61 dBm, 26.5GHz)and LO signal(-1 dBm, 25.6 GHz), IF signal(0dBm, 0.9 GHz) agreed with simulated results is obtained.d.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.688-693
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• 1999

This paper presents a very simple coupled line structure for MMIC which uses stacked microstrip line and does not employ any dielectric process step. For the analysis and optimization of these coupled line structure, HP-Momentum was used. The measured performance of 3 dB coupler shows 23 to 45 GHz broadband characteristics. Additionally, a balanced 2-stage Ka-Band power amplifier which uses the proposed 3 dB coupler, was also fabricated.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.769-772
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• 2005

This paper describes a low-voltage and low-power channel selection analog front end with continuous-time low pass filters and highly linear programmable-gain amplifier(PGA). The filters were realized as balanced Gm-C biquadratic filters to achieve a low current consumption. High linearity and a constant wide bandwidth are achieved by using a new transconductance(Gm) cell. The PGA has a voltage gain varying from 0 to 65dB, while maintaining a constant bandwidth. A filter tuning circuit that requires an accurate time base but no external components is presented. With a 1-Vrms differential input and output, the filter achieves -85dB THD and a 78dB signal-to-noise ratio. Both the filter and PGA were implemented in a 0.18um 1P6M n-well CMOS process. They consume 3.2mW from a 1.8V power supply and occupy an area of $0.19mm^2$.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.257-262
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• 2010

We design a CMOS front-end with wide variable gain and low power consumption for 5.25 GHz band. To obtain wide variable gain range, a p-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (PMOS FET) in the low noise amplifier (LNA) section is connected in parallel. For a mixer, single balanced and folded structure is employed for low power consumption. Using this structure, the bias currents of the transconductance and switching stages in the mixer can be separated without using current bleeding path. The proposed front-end has a maximum gain of 33.2 dB with a variable gain range of 17 dB. The noise figure and third-order input intercept point (IIP3) are 4.8 dB and -8.5 dBm, respectively. For this operation, the proposed front-end consumes 7.1 mW at high gain mode, and 2.6 mW at low gain mode. The simulation results are performed using Cadence RF spectre with the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) $0.18\;{\mu}m$ CMOS technology.)

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.1350-1359
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• 2008

This paper presents a wideband doubly balanced resistive mixer fabricated using $0.5{\mu}m$ GaAs p-HEMT process. Three baluns are employed in the mixer. LO and RF baluns operating over an 8 to 20 GHz range were implemented with Marchand baluns. In order to reduce chip size, the Marchand baluns were realized by the meandering multicoupled line and inductor lines were inserted to compensate for the meandering effect. IF balun was implemented through a DC-coupled differential amplifier. The size of IF balun is $0.3{\times}0.5\;mm^2$ and the measured amplitude and phase unbalances were less than 1 dB and $5^{\circ}$, respectively from DC to 7 GHz. The mixer is $1.7{\times}1.8\;mm^2$ in size, has a conversion loss of 5 to 11 dB, and an output third order intercept(OIP3) of +10 to +15 dBm at 16 dBm LO power for the operating bandwidth.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.84-92
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• 2000

A GaAs MESFET MMIC transmitter for 2.4 GHz wireless local loop handset is designed and fabricated. The transmitter consists of a double balanced active mixer and a two stage driver amplifier with voltage negative feedback. In particular, a pair of CS-CG(common source-common gate) structure compensates the reduction in dynamic range caused by unbalanced complementary IF input signals. And to suppress the leakage local power at RF port, the mixer is designed by using phase characteristic between the ports of MESFET. At the bias condition of 2.7 V and 55.2 mA, the fabricated MMIC transmitter with chip dimensions of $0.75\times1.75 mm^2$ obtains a measured conversion gain of 38.6 dB, output $P_{idB}$ of 11.6 dBm, and IMD3 at -5 dBm RF output power of -31.3 dBc. This transmitter is well suited for WLL handset.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.17 no.6 s.109
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• pp.519-528
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• 2006

This thesis is regarding of fabricating wibro PAM. First of all, we need to set specification based on link budget for wibro communication circumstance in order to develop PAM, then we decided specification concerning of wibro PAM by considering TTAS_Ko_06_0082R1 which is standarded in Korea, and IEEE Std. 802. 16d/e which is international standard. We selected the Doherty structure to increase efficiency, and pre-distorter structure to increase linearity. The fabricated PAM has not only a result of $26.5dB{\pm}1.0dB$ gain characteristics and maximum of -14 dB return loss characteristics in full frequency bands and full output ranges, but also a result of 37 dBc at 4 tone IMD characteristics which is improved result of 843 and a result of 31 dBc spurious characteristics which is improved result of 5 dB at 4.77 MHz offset point in status of having 27 % efficiency in the 26 dBm high power amplifier output signal. We confirmed the suggested structure is better than others by comparing with normal structure, balanced structure and Doherty structure without predistorter.