Area-Efficient Low-Power Radio Frequency and Millimeter Wave CMOS Integrated Circuits

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Area-Efficient Low-Power Radio Frequency and Millimeter Wave CMOS Integrated Circuits In the last two decades, the implementation of radio frequency (RF) building blocks of wireless transceivers along with the rest of systems on a single Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) silicon chip has enabled the low-cost integration of several wireless platforms in today’s portable electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, wireless sensors, and many others. However, the RF part of the system typically occupies a significant portion of silicon chip area because of the necessity to use on-chip passive components particularly on-chip spiral inductors. In addition, RF circuits usually consume a significant portion of total chip power. Growing consumer demand for increased functionality at reduced cost and extended battery life necessitates greater research efforts on design and implementation of area-efficient low-power radio frequency and millimeter-wave (MMW) CMOS integrated circuits (ICs) and systems to lower microchip fabrication cost and reduce power consumption. The long-term objective of the proposed research is to develop new device, circuit, and system structures to enable economical CMOS-based solutions for widespread adoption of radio-frequency and mm-wave devices in mainstream consumer electronic products. To lower the cost of RF and MMW ICs, we plan to develop highly-linear low-noise transistor-based passive components (TBPCs) to replace their area-inefficient passive counterparts in major RF building blocks. These TBPCs such as active inductors emulate the electrical behavior of their passive counterparts only occupying a fraction of the chip area of their passive counterparts. Using the same concept, we plan develop new passive devices such as negative capacitors and inductors for which no passive alternatives exist in order to enhance the performance of RF/MMW circuits and systems. The TBPCs such as negative resistors and capacitors can potentially compensate for the losses and cancel the effect of parasitic capacitors of RF/MMW circuits resulting in gain enhancement, bandwidth extension, and lower power consumption. In order to extend the battery life of portable wireless devices, we plan to work on lowering the power consumption of RF/MMW circuits through development of RF circuits in the moderate inversion region where the ratio of transistor gain to the power consumption is the highest. In addition, fully integrated RF energy harvesting systems will be used to charge the device battery on the go to further extend the battery life of portable electronic devices. Finally, to enable new MMW wireless technologies become commercially available in mainstream electronic products, we aim to design and implement MMW integrated circuits in low-cost CMOS process. In this project, novel structures of RF/MMW devices, circuits, and systems will be developed for variety of applications including high-data-rate wireless communication, wireless sensors, biomedical imaging, security, and many others. As implemented in CMOS technology, these new devices lower the cost and reduce the size of final product making them economically feasible for mainstream consumers. We expect to create new knowledge in the field as the proposed devices will be developed to outperform the previously reported designs in terms performance, area efficiency, and power efficiency and consumption. This new knowledge can be commercialized by start-up companies or through licensing to established corporations and will be disseminated in respected publications to advance the research in the field. In addition, several graduate students will be trained throughout this project as integrated circuits and systems designers.