A PVT-Tolerant >40-dB IRR, 44% Fractional-Bandwidth Ultra-Wideband mm-Wave Quadrature LO Generator for 5G Networks in 55-nm CMOS
TL;DR: This solution compares favorably with the state of the art and shows the largest fractional bandwidth (44%) among the quadrature generators at frequencies greater than 20 GHz, to authors’ knowledge.
Abstract: Precise generation of quadrature signals over a wide frequency range is a key function for the next-generation 5G communication systems. In this paper, we present a wideband quadrature generator based on a single-stage polyphase filter (PPF). A phase detector senses the phase error from quadrature signals generated by a single-stage PPF, and a feedback circuit continuously tunes the filter center frequency to the input signal frequency by varying the polyphase resistance of an nMOS device in triode. Transformer-based resonant circuits at the input and output of the PPF ensure wide bandwidth and low loss. Prototypes have been realized in a 55-nm CMOS technology. Tailored to the next-generation 5G systems for cross-network interoperability requirements, the measured quadrature generator shows an image rejection ratio IRR > 40 dB over a bandwidth from 28 to 44 GHz. The power consumption is 36 mW for the PPF and buffers, and 3 mW only for the calibration loop. One key aspect of the proposed solution is its robustness over process, voltage and temperature (PVT), one of the weak aspects of alternatives proposed in the literature. This solution compares favorably with the state of the art and shows the largest fractional bandwidth (44%) among the quadrature generators at frequencies greater than 20 GHz, to authors’ knowledge.
Citations
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TL;DR: The first CMOS RX front end that covers 24.5–43.5-GHz mm-Wave 5G bands and supports instantaneous full-band IR with no calibration, switching/tuning elements, or external controls is presented, enabling future wideband low-latency 5G MIMOs.
Abstract: This article presents an extremely broadband 24.5–43.5 GHz receiver (RX) achieving 32–56-dB instantaneous full-band image rejection (IR), which supports multiple major mm-Wave 5G bands at 24.5/28/37/39/43 GHz. A compact transformer-based I/Q network (0.14 mm2) is proposed to generate high-precision LO I/Q signals at millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) and provide built-in load impedance up-transformation for passive voltage amplification, boosting the LO swing for a higher RX conversion gain (CG). The high-quality differential I/Q generation is measured with phase/amplitude variation less than ±1.8°/±0.15 dB over an instantaneous wide bandwidth of 25–50 GHz without any calibration or switching/tunable elements. The RX is measured with a peak 35.2-dB CG and 18-dB gain tuning to accommodate complex EM environments. The RX modulation tests successfully demonstrate receiving 18-Gb/s 64-QAM and 14.4-Gb/s 256-QAM signals. In addition, the RX is tested with concurrent injection of a desired signal and an image, while the image uses the same wideband modulation scheme and data rate as the desired signal. The RX successfully rejects the wideband images and receives the desired signals of 12-Gb/s 64-QAM with −27.6-dB EVM and 8-Gb/s 256-QAM with −33.47-dB EVM. To the best of our knowledge, this article presents the first CMOS RX front end that covers 24.5–43.5-GHz mm-Wave 5G bands and supports instantaneous full-band IR with no calibration, switching/tuning elements, or external controls, enabling future wideband low-latency 5G MIMOs.
53 citations
Cites background from "A PVT-Tolerant >40-dB IRR, 44% Frac..."
...However, RC–CR PPFs at mm-Wave exhibit large-signal attenuation, highly capacitive input loading, limited driving capability, and vulnerability to mm-Wave trace routings and output load variations [30], [35], [37]....
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01 Nov 2007
TL;DR: Two 4-bit active phase shifters integrated with all digital control circuitry in 0.13-mum RF CMOS technology are developed for X- and Ku-band and K-band phased arrays, respectively, based on a resonance-based quadratures all-pass filter for quadrature signaling with minimum loss and wide operation bandwidth.
Abstract: Two 4-bit active phase shifters integrated with all digital control circuitry in 0.13-mu m RF CMOS technology are developed for X- and Ku-band (8-18 GHz) and K-band (18-26 GHz) phased arrays, respectively. The active digital phase shifters synthesize the required phase using a phase interpolation process by adding quadrature-phased input signals. The designs are based on a resonance-based quadrature all-pass filter for quadrature signaling with minimum loss and wide operation bandwidth. Both phase shifters can change phases with less than about 2 dB of RMS amplitude imbalance for all phase states through an associated DAC control. For the X- and Ku-band phase shifter, the RMS phase error is less than 10 degrees over the entire 5-18 GHz range. The average insertion loss ranges from -3 dB; to -0.2 dB at 5-20 GHz. The input P-1dB for all 4-bit phase states is typically - 5.4 +/- 1.3 dBm at 12 GHz in the X- and.Ku-band phase shifter. The K-band phase shifter exhibits 6.5-13 degrees of RMS phase error at 15-26 GHz. The average insertion loss is from -4.6 to -3 dB at 15-26 GHz. The input P-1dB of the K-band phase shifter is -0.8 +/- 1.1 dBm at 24 GHz. For both phase shifters, the core size excluding all the pads and the output 50 Omega matching circuits, inserted for measurement purpose only, is very small, 0.33 x 0.43 mm(2). The total current consumption is 5.8 mA in the X- and Ku-band phase shifter and 7.8 mA in the K-band phase shifter, from a 1.5 V supply voltage.
43 citations
TL;DR: A comprehensive survey of the suitability, advantages, and challenges of the AoCs for the emerging wireless applications such as 5th generation (5G) Wireless Systems, Internet-of-Things (IoT) Wireless Devices and Systems, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), Wireless Interconnects, Wireless Energy Transfer, Radio Frequency Energy Harvesting, Biomedical Implants, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Autonomous vehicles, Innovative characterization methods for Integrated Circuits and Antennas.
Abstract: The ever-growing demand for low power, high performance, cost-effective, low-profile, and highly integrated wireless systems for emerging applications has triggered the need for the enormous innovations in wireless transceiver systems, components, architectures and technologies. This is especially valid for the antenna which is an integral component of the wireless transceiver systems and contributes significantly in determining their overall performance. Antenna-on-Chip (AoC) is an alternative antenna technology, which has drawn a substantial attention in recent days because of its various benefits over off-chip antenna technology. A few of these benefits include miniaturization, low power, low cost, and high integration of the wireless modules. Motivated by these valuable advantages and to unveil the true potential of the AoCs, this article presents, for the first time, a comprehensive survey of the suitability, advantages, and challenges of the AoCs for the emerging wireless applications such as 5th generation (5G) Wireless Systems, Internet-of-Things (IoT) Wireless Devices and Systems, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), Wireless Interconnects, Wireless Energy Transfer, Radio Frequency (RF) Energy Harvesting, Biomedical Implants, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Autonomous vehicles, Innovative characterization methods for Integrated Circuits (ICs) and Antennas, and Smart City. In addition, this article presents the current state-of-the-art of the AoC's applications by classifying their applications in Millimeter-Wave (MM-Wave) band, Terahertz (THz) band, and low-frequency bands. The article also investigates and describes some useful methods for the mitigation of the challenges and issues posed by the emerging applications for the realization of the AoCs in a systematic manner. A concise description of the future directions of the AoCs with respect to each emerging application is also a part of this article. It is expected that this well-structured and organized survey will not only act as an excellent source of scholarship for the relevant research community, but also open up a world of novel research opportunities.
37 citations
Additional excerpts
...Few of these bands include 26 and 28 GHz [70]–[72], 32 and 37 GHz [72], 33 GHz [73], 36 Hz [74], 38 GHz [75], 39 GHz [13], [61], 45 GHz [75], and 57-70 [74]–[76]....
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TL;DR: In this article, an injection-locked local oscillator (LO) generation targeting mm-wave multiband 5G communication is presented, which can operate from 21.7 to 41.7 GHz with a narrowband 6.2 to 8.0-GHz input source.
Abstract: An injection-locked local oscillator (LO) generation targeting mm-wave multiband 5G communication is presented. With a band-selective injection-locked frequency multiplier (ILFM), the LO generation can operate from 21.7 to 41.7 GHz with a narrowband 6.2-to-8.0-GHz input source. An injection-locked amplifier (IL-amp) is cascaded for harmonic rejection. Fabricated in a 65-nm CMOS process, the proposed LO generation consumes 74.4-mW power with 5.0-dBm output power. A 25.3% input bandwidth is extended to a 63.1% output operating bandwidth with no further phase noise degradation. A −105.6-dBc/Hz phase noise at 1-MHz offset is measured at 24 GHz with a −42.7-dBc integrated phase noise. The LO generation rejects the unwanted harmonics to more than 30.0 dB and occupies 0.52 mm2.
16 citations
Cites background from "A PVT-Tolerant >40-dB IRR, 44% Frac..."
...Compared with the poly-phase filter (PPF) [27] and the hybrid [28], a frequency divider will consume much less power with a higher effective conversion gain, and the IQ mismatch is much lower with little chip area occupied....
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...Compared with the poly-phase filter (PPF) [27] and the hybrid [28],...
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TL;DR: Implemented in a 28-nm bulk CMOS technology without ultra-thick top metal option, the realized prototype outperforms prior reported CMOS designs in terms of phase noise, figure of merit (FOM), and tuning range.
Abstract: An $E$ -band direct-conversion subharmonic receiver (SHRX) is designed exploring a coupled-rotary-traveling-wave-oscillator-based (coupled-RTWO-based) architecture. Distributed oscillators are leveraged to generate $N=8$ differential phases at $f_{\mathrm{ LO}}=f_{\mathrm{ RF}}/4$ . Current-mode passive mixers (MXs) are adopted to enable <1-V supply operation and greatly simplify the layout. An inductively degenerated neutralized common source (DCS) low-noise amplifier (LNA) is embedded in a fourth-order transformer-based matching network to allow broadband impedance scaling and high reverse isolation. Implemented in a 28-nm bulk CMOS technology without ultra-thick top metal option, the realized prototype outperforms prior reported CMOS designs in terms of phase noise, figure of merit (FOM), and tuning range. The SHRX front end achieves 8.3-dB noise figure (NF), 12.5 GHz −3-dB RF bandwidth (BW), and −25-dBm ICP1 dB, while consuming <100 mW.
14 citations
Cites background from "A PVT-Tolerant >40-dB IRR, 44% Frac..."
...Such selfcalibration loop could be introduced in the future works, as proposed elsewhere [49], [50]....
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References
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TL;DR: The motivation for new mm-wave cellular systems, methodology, and hardware for measurements are presented and a variety of measurement results are offered that show 28 and 38 GHz frequencies can be used when employing steerable directional antennas at base stations and mobile devices.
Abstract: The global bandwidth shortage facing wireless carriers has motivated the exploration of the underutilized millimeter wave (mm-wave) frequency spectrum for future broadband cellular communication networks. There is, however, little knowledge about cellular mm-wave propagation in densely populated indoor and outdoor environments. Obtaining this information is vital for the design and operation of future fifth generation cellular networks that use the mm-wave spectrum. In this paper, we present the motivation for new mm-wave cellular systems, methodology, and hardware for measurements and offer a variety of measurement results that show 28 and 38 GHz frequencies can be used when employing steerable directional antennas at base stations and mobile devices.
6,708 citations
"A PVT-Tolerant >40-dB IRR, 44% Frac..." refers background in this paper
..., handling 100–1000 simultaneous connections more than LTE [2]....
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TL;DR: While massive MIMO renders many traditional research problems irrelevant, it uncovers entirely new problems that urgently need attention: the challenge of making many low-cost low-precision components that work effectively together, acquisition and synchronization for newly joined terminals, the exploitation of extra degrees of freedom provided by the excess of service antennas, reducing internal power consumption to achieve total energy efficiency reductions, and finding new deployment scenarios.
Abstract: Multi-user MIMO offers big advantages over conventional point-to-point MIMO: it works with cheap single-antenna terminals, a rich scattering environment is not required, and resource allocation is simplified because every active terminal utilizes all of the time-frequency bins. However, multi-user MIMO, as originally envisioned, with roughly equal numbers of service antennas and terminals and frequency-division duplex operation, is not a scalable technology. Massive MIMO (also known as large-scale antenna systems, very large MIMO, hyper MIMO, full-dimension MIMO, and ARGOS) makes a clean break with current practice through the use of a large excess of service antennas over active terminals and time-division duplex operation. Extra antennas help by focusing energy into ever smaller regions of space to bring huge improvements in throughput and radiated energy efficiency. Other benefits of massive MIMO include extensive use of inexpensive low-power components, reduced latency, simplification of the MAC layer, and robustness against intentional jamming. The anticipated throughput depends on the propagation environment providing asymptotically orthogonal channels to the terminals, but so far experiments have not disclosed any limitations in this regard. While massive MIMO renders many traditional research problems irrelevant, it uncovers entirely new problems that urgently need attention: the challenge of making many low-cost low-precision components that work effectively together, acquisition and synchronization for newly joined terminals, the exploitation of extra degrees of freedom provided by the excess of service antennas, reducing internal power consumption to achieve total energy efficiency reductions, and finding new deployment scenarios. This article presents an overview of the massive MIMO concept and contemporary research on the topic.
6,184 citations
"A PVT-Tolerant >40-dB IRR, 44% Frac..." refers methods in this paper
...Architectures employing channel bonding capability [5], massive multiple-input multipleoutput (M-MIMO) [6], hybrid analog/digital beamforming [7], in-band full-duplex transceivers [8], and dual-polarization beamforming [9], are investigated to enhance both capacity and coverage....
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TL;DR: In this paper, two 4-bit active phase shifters integrated with all digital control circuitry in 0.13mum RF CMOS technology are developed for X- and Ku-band (8-18 GHz) and K-band(18-26 GHz) phased arrays, respectively.
Abstract: Two 4-bit active phase shifters integrated with all digital control circuitry in 0.13-mum RF CMOS technology are developed for X- and Ku-band (8-18 GHz) and K-band (18-26 GHz) phased arrays, respectively. The active digital phase shifters synthesize the required phase using a phase interpolation process by adding quadrature-phased input signals. The designs are based on a resonance-based quadrature all-pass filter for quadrature signaling with minimum loss and wide operation bandwidth. Both phase shifters can change phases with less than about 2 dB of RMS amplitude imbalance for all phase states through an associated DAC control. For the X- and Ku-band phase shifter, the RMS phase error is less than 10o over the entire 5-18 GHz range. The average insertion loss ranges from to at 5-20 GHz. The input for all 4-bit phase states is typically at -5.4 plusmn1.3 GHz in the X- and Ku-band phase shifter. The K-band phase shifter exhibits 6.5-13 of RMS phase error at 15-26 GHz. The average insertion loss is from 4.6 to at 15-26 GHz. The input of the K-band phase shifter is at 24 GHz. For both phase shifters, the core size excluding all the pads and the output 50 Omega matching circuits, inserted for measurement purpose only, is very small, 0.33times0.43 mm2 . The total current consumption is 5.8 mA in the X- and Ku-band phase shifter and 7.8 mA in the K-band phase shifter, from a 1.5 V supply voltage.
374 citations
01 Feb 2018
TL;DR: An IF interface to the analog baseband is desired for low power consumption in the handset or user equipment (UE) active antenna and to enable use of arrays of transceivers for customer premises equipment (CPE) or basestation (BS) antenna arrays with a low-loss IF power-combining/splitting network implemented on an antenna backplane carrying multiple tiled antenna modules.
Abstract: Developing next-generation cellular technology (5G) in the mm-wave bands will require low-cost phased-array transceivers [1]. Even with the benefit of beamforming, due to space constraints in the mobile form-factor, increasing TX output power while maintaining acceptable PA PAE, LNA NF, and overall transceiver power consumption is important to maximizing link budget allowable path loss and minimizing handset case temperature. Further, the phased-array transceiver will need to be able to support dual-polarization communication. An IF interface to the analog baseband is desired for low power consumption in the handset or user equipment (UE) active antenna and to enable use of arrays of transceivers for customer premises equipment (CPE) or basestation (BS) antenna arrays with a low-loss IF power-combining/splitting network implemented on an antenna backplane carrying multiple tiled antenna modules.
285 citations
TL;DR: A new, highly reconfigurable system architecture for 5G cellular user equipment, namely distributed phased arrays based MIMO (DPA-MIMO) is proposed and the link budget calculation and data throughput numerical results are presented for the evaluation of the proposed architecture.
Abstract: Research and development on the next generation wireless systems, namely 5G, has experienced explosive growth in recent years. In the physical layer, the massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) technique and the use of high GHz frequency bands are two promising trends for adoption. Millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands, such as 28, 38, 64, and 71 GHz, which were previously considered not suitable for commercial cellular networks, will play an important role in 5G. Currently, most 5G research deals with the algorithms and implementations of modulation and coding schemes, new spatial signal processing technologies, new spectrum opportunities, channel modeling, 5G proof of concept systems, and other system-level enabling technologies. In this paper, we first investigate the contemporary wireless user equipment (UE) hardware design, and unveil the critical 5G UE hardware design constraints on circuits and systems. On top of the said investigation and design tradeoff analysis, a new, highly reconfigurable system architecture for 5G cellular user equipment, namely distributed phased arrays based MIMO (DPA-MIMO) is proposed. Finally, the link budget calculation and data throughput numerical results are presented for the evaluation of the proposed architecture.
182 citations
"A PVT-Tolerant >40-dB IRR, 44% Frac..." refers background in this paper
...To facilitate cross-network and international roaming, multiple frequency bands, allocated around 28, 37, and 39 GHz, have been appointed as best candidates for initial 5G deployment [11], [12]....
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