Analog Integrated Circuits for Massively Parallel Wireless Transceivers

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Increasing demand for wireless communication has made spectrum a scarce commodity. Mobile data traffic in Canada is slated to increase 7-fold over 2014 levels by 2019. In response, Industry Canada is trying to make new spectrum available around 600MHz and 3500MHz for commercial providers, but this will require commissioning and deploying new equipment at great expense. At the same time, our use of unlicensed spectrum (around the 2.4 GHz and 5 – 6 GHz, for example) is growing even faster than that of the licensed spectrum, and therefore seeing tremendous congestion.******Technologies to alleviate these spectral constraints are now known to communication theorists, but they must be adapted to permit their implementation in inexpensive integrated circuits (ICs). Specifically, “Massive MIMO” is a wireless technology that relies upon hundreds or even thousands of antennas at each fixed terminal (i.e. central router or base-station). All antennas transmit and receive signals in concert to hundreds of users simultaneously using the same frequencies, thereby permitting tremendous reuse of the spectrum. Orders-of-magnitude increases in communication bandwidth are theoretically achievable without increasing spectrum or radiated-power limits. ******The tremendous potential of Massive MIMO has made it a key part of wireless technology roadmaps worldwide, but innovation on mixed analog-digital integrated circuit design is needed to make it practical. Massive MIMO is seen as a necessary tool for meeting wireless bandwidth demands in the coming decades, and is implicit in Canada's wireless regulatory policies. However, these roadmaps and assumptions are already being questioned because the analog/mixed-signal IC signal processing required for a straightforward implementation of Massive MIMO is impractical. This proposal seeks analog integrated signal processing technologies to complement existing communication technologies and enable practical and inexpensive Massive MIMO communication.******Graduate students engaged in the program will undertake system-level modeling and simulation of communication links, as well as integrated circuit design and characterization in UofT labs. Their experience and training is in high demand from Canadian companies working to establish or maintain their foothold in these markets. Hence, the proposed research program will benefit Canada via the technological leadership of its HQP, and by accelerating the wide availability of next-generation inexpensive wireless broadband.