A broadband inductorless low-noise amplifier (LNA) design that utilizes simultaneous noise and distortion cancellation is presented. Concurrent cancellation of the intrinsic third-order distortion from individual stages is exhibited with the common-gate and common-source cascade. The LNA is then limited by the second-order interaction between the common source and common gate stages, which is common in all cascade amplifiers. Further removal of this third-order distortion is achieved by incorporating a second-order-distortion-free circuit technique in the common gate stage. Implemented in 0.13 m CMOS technology, this LNA achieved 16 dBm in both the 900 MHz and 2 GHz bands. Measurements demonstrate that the LNA has a minimum internal gain of 14.5 dB, noise figure of 2.6 dB from 800 MHz to 2.1GHz while drawing 11.6 mA from 1.5 V supply voltage.

A Highly Linear Broadband CMOS LNA Employing Noise and Distortion Cancellation

Highly linear receiver RF front-end adopting MOSFET transconductance linearization by linearly superposing several common-source FET transistors in parallel (multiple gated transistor, or MGTR), combined with some additional circuit techniques are reported. In MGTR circuitry, linearity is improved by using transconductance linearization which can be achieved by canceling the negative peak value of g/sub m/'' of the main transistor with the positive one in the auxiliary transistor having a different size and gate drive combined in parallel. This enhancement, however, is limited by the distortion originated from the combined influence of g/sub m/' and harmonic feedback, which can greatly be reduced by the cascoding MGTR output for the amplifier and by the tuned load for the mixer. Experimental results designed using the above techniques show IIP/sub 3/ improvements at given power consumption by as much as 10 dB for CMOS low-noise amplifier at 900 MHz and 7 dB for Gilbert cell mixer at 2.4 GHz without sacrificing other features such as gain and noise figure.

Highly linear receiver front-end adopting MOSFET transconductance linearization by multiple gated transistors

A transformer-feedback voltage-controlled oscillator (TF-VCO) is proposed to achieve low-phase-noise and low-power designs even at a supply below the threshold voltage. The advantages of the proposed TF-VCO are described together with its detailed analysis and its cyclo-stationary characteristic. Two prototypes using the proposed TF-VCO techniques are demonstrated in a standard 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS process. The first design using two single-ended transformers is operated at 1.4 GHz at a 0.35-V supply using PMOS transistors whose threshold voltage is around 0.52 V. The power consumption is 1.46 mW while the measured phase noise is -128.6 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz frequency offset. Using an optimum differential transformer to maximize quality factor and to minimize the chip area, the second design is operated at 3.8 GHz at a 0.5-V supply with power consumption of 570 /spl mu/W and a measured phase noise of -119 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz frequency offset. The figures of merits are comparable or better to that of other state-of-the-art VCO designs operating at much higher supply voltage.

Ultra-low-Voltage high-performance CMOS VCOs using transformer feedback

A method for decoding a plurality of flash memory cells which are error-correction-coded as a unit, the method comprising providing a hard-decoding success indication indicating whether or not hard-decoding is at least likely to be successful; and soft-decoding the plurality of flash memory cells at a first resolution only if the hard-decoding success indication indicates that the hard-decoding is not at least likely to be successful.

Flash memory apparatus and methods using a plurality of decoding stages including optional use of concatenated BCH codes and/or designation of “first below” cells

A single-chip 2.4-GHz CMOS radio transceiver with integrated baseband processing according to the IEEE 802.15.4 standard is presented. The transceiver consumes 14.7 mA in receive mode and 15.7 mA in transmit mode. The receiver uses a low-IF topology for high sensitivity and low power consumption, and achieves -101 dBm sensitivity for 1% packet error rate. The transmitter topology is based on a PLL direct-modulation scheme. Optimizations of architecture and circuit design level in order to reduce the transceiver power consumption are described. Special attention is paid to the RF front-end design which consumes 2.4mA in receive mode and features bidirectional RF pins. The 5.77 mm2 chip is implemented in a standard 0.18-mum CMOS technology. The transmitter delivers +3 dBm into the 100-Omega differential antenna port

A Fully Integrated 2.4-GHz IEEE 802.15.4-Compliant Transceiver for ZigBee™ Applications

An experimental 2.4-GHz CMOS radio composed of RF and digital circuits for the low-power and low-rate preliminary IEEE802.15.4 WPAN is reported, consuming 21 mW in receive mode and 30 mW in transmit mode. The RF design focus is to maximize linearity for a given power consumption using linearization methods which lead an order of magnitude improvement in LNA/mixer IIP3/power performance. Chip-on-PCB technology allows implementation of a coin-sized radio at very low cost, which also provides 3 dBi gain patch antenna and high Q (>50) inductors.

An experimental coin-sized radio for extremely low-power WPAN (IEEE 802.15.4) application at 2.4 GHz

Various read level control apparatuses and methods are provided. In various embodiments, the read level control apparatuses may include an error control code (ECC) decoding unit for ECC decoding data read from a storage unit, and a monitoring unit for monitoring a bit error rate (BER) based on the ECC decoded data and the read data. The apparatus may additionally include an error determination unit for determining an error rate of the read data based on the monitored BER, and a level control unit for controlling a read level of the storage unit based on the error rate.

Read level control apparatuses and methods

A Multi-Level Cell (MLC) memory device and method thereof are provided. The example MLC memory device may be configured to perform data operations, and may include an MLC memory cell, a first coding device performing a first coding function, the first coding function being one of an encoding function and a decoding function, a second coding device performing a second coding function, the second coding function being one of an encoding function and a decoding function and a signal module configured to perform at least one of instructing the MLC memory cell to store data output by the second coding device if the first and second coding functions are encoding functions, and generating a demapped bit stream based on data retrieved from the MLC memory cell if the first and second coding functions are decoding functions.

Multi-level cell memory device and method thereof

The impact of CMOS technology scaling on the various radio frequency (RF) circuit components such as active, passive and digital circuits is presented Firstly, the impact of technology scaling on the noise and linearity of the low-noise amplifier (LNA) is thoroughly analyzed Then two new circuits, ie, CMOS complementary parallel push-pull (CCPP) circuit and vertical-NPN (V-NPN) circuit for direct-conversion receiver (DCR), are introduced In CCPP, the high RF performance of pMOS comparable to nMOS provides single ended differential RF signal processing capability without the use of a bulky balun The use of parasitic V-NPN bipolar transistor, available in triple well CMOS technology, has shown to provide more than an order of magnitude improvement in 1/f noise and dc offset related problems, which have been the bottleneck for CMOS single chip integration Then CMOS technology scaling for various passive device performances such as the inductor, varactor, MIM capacitor, and switched capacitor, is discussed Both the forward scaling of the active devices and the inverse scaling of interconnection layer, ie, more interconnection layers with effectively thicker total dielectric and metal layers, provide very favorable scenario for all passive devices Finally, the impact of CMOS scaling on the various digital circuits is introduced, taking the digital modem blocks, the various digital calibration circuits, the switching RF power amplifier, and eventually the software defined radio, as examples

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The impact of semiconductor technology scaling on CMOS RF and digital circuits for wireless application

A multi-level cell (MLC) memory device may include: a MLC memory cell; an outer encoder that encodes data using a first encoding scheme to generate an outer encoded bit stream; and a trellis coded modulation (TCM) modulator that applies a program pulse to the MLC memory cell to write the data in the MLC memory cell. The program pulse may be generated by TCM modulating the outer encoded bit stream. A method of storing data in a MLC memory device, reading data from the MLC memory device, or storing data in and reading data from the MLC memory device may include: encoding data using a first encoding scheme to generate an outer encoded bit stream; and applying a program pulse to a MLC memory cell of the MLC memory device to write the data in the MLC memory cell. The program pulse may be generated by TCM modulating the outer encoded bit stream.

Sung Chung Park

Papers

An experimental coin-sized radio for extremely low-power WPAN (IEEE 802.15.4) application at 2.4 GHz

Read level control apparatuses and methods

Multi-level cell memory device and method thereof

The impact of semiconductor technology scaling on CMOS RF and digital circuits for wireless application

Multi-level cell memory devices using trellis coded modulation and methods of storing data in and reading data from the memory devices