Devices, Circuits, Processes and Tools for Reconfigurable and Programmable Power Efficient Microwave Circuits

现场可编程微波电路几十年来一直受到研究人员的关注，并且仍然是一项备受追捧的技术。在数字领域，数字系统设计人员长期以来一直可以使用现场可编程门阵列（fpga）和其他可编程硬件，而无需对重点硬件技术的深入知识和专业知识有特别的要求。例如，fpga实现了高水平的硬件抽象，并帮助将数字系统设计和实现民主化，以实现非常广泛和多样化的用户社区。相比之下，微波电路/系统是高度静态的，必须经常在同一无线电中复制或重复以适应不同的频率或服务，并且几乎没有提供硬件重用和现场可编程性。此外，他们的设计仍然局限于一个相对较小的专家社区，并被大多数非专业人士视为“黑魔法”。******我提出的研究计划的目标是采取一种整体方法，帮助实现可编程、节能微波电路的设计和配置的范式转变，并且世卫组织可以在不需要深入的专业知识或吓跑微波电路设计新手的情况下进行设计和配置。这就需要开发新的工具和技术，它们共同能够带来这样的转变。具体来说，该项目将沿着两个主要方向寻求发现：(i)工具推力——通过一种新颖的射频/微波电路设计框架，结合基于功能的设计和硬件合成的硬件抽象技术；（ii）技术推力——通过新颖的设备和制造工艺，实现动态设计、可编程性和有效的能源利用，并通过热电发电进行回收。在技术方面，该计划将重点关注多层低温共烧陶瓷（LTCC）技术与微加工（MEMS）技术和先进GaN半导体器件的使用，而在工具方面，将使用高级现代标记语言来捕获基于功能的设计并实现硬件抽象策略。还将研究允许将基于硬件抽象功能的设计映射到LTCC/MEMS/GaN物理技术平台的合成技术。**

Field programmable microwave circuits have alluded researchers for decades and still remains a highly sought after technology. In the digital domain, Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and other programmable hardware have long been accessible to digital systems designers, with no particular requirements of in-depth knowledge and expertise in the underlining hardware technology. FPGAs for example have enabled high levels of hardware abstraction and helped democratize digital systems design and implementation to a very wide and diverse user community. By contrast microwave circuits/systems are highly static, must often be duplicated or repeated in the same radio to accommodate different frequencies or services and offer little to no hardware re-use and field programmability. Furthermore, their design has remained limited to a relatively small community of experts and is perceived as Black Magic' by most non specialists. ******The goal of my proposed research program is to take a holistic approach that can help bring about a paradigm shift in HOW programmable, power efficient microwave circuits can be designed and configured and WHO can do the designing and configuring without requiring in depth expertise nor scaring off new comers to microwave circuit design. This entails the development of new tools and technologies that, together, can bring about such a shift. Specifically, this program will seek to make discoveries along two main thrusts: (i) the tools thrust - through a novel RF/microwave circuit design framework that incorporates hardware abstraction techniques for function based design and hardware synthesis, and (ii) the technologies thrust - through novel devices and fabrication processes to enable design on the fly, programmability and efficient energy use and recycling through thermo-electric generation. On the technology front, the program will be focused on the use of the multilayer Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramics (LTCC) technology coupled with microfabrication (MEMS) techniques and advanced GaN semiconductor devices while on tools front, high-level modern markup languages will be used to capture function-based designs and to implement hardware abstraction strategies. Synthesis techniques that allow mapping of the hardware-abstracted function based designs to the LTCC/MEMS/GaN physical technology platform will also be investigated. **