Misalignment of delay-locked loop (DLL) output edges creates an undesired periodicity, resulting in reference harmonic tones at the output spectrum of edge-combining DLL (ECDLL)-based frequency synthesizers. These spurious tones corrupt the spectral purity to an unacceptable level for wireless applications. The spur magnitude is a random variable defined by the reference frequency, number of DLL phases, harmonic order, stage-delay standard deviation (SD), duty cycle distortion (DCD) of the reference clock, and static phase error (SPE) of the locked-loop due to charge pump/phase detector imperfections. Hence, to estimate the spurious performance of such synthesizers, exhaustive Monte Carlo (MC) simulations are inevitable. Based on closed-form expressions, this paper proposes a generic predictive model for harmonic spur characterization of ECDLL-based frequency synthesizers, whose prediction accuracy is independent of synthesizer design parameters and system non-idealities. Therefore, it can replace MC method to significantly accelerate the iterative design procedure of the synthesizer, while providing comparable predictions in terms of robustness and accuracy to that of MC. Validity, accuracy, and robustness of the proposed prediction method against wide-range values of non-idealities are verified through MC simulations of both the behavioral model and transistor-level model of the synthesizer in a standard 65-nm CMOS technology.

With the advent of Internet of Things (IoT) it has become clear that radio-frequency (RF) designers have to be aware of power constraints, e.g., in the design of simplistic ultra-low power receivers often used as wake-up radios (WuRs). The objective of this work, one of the first systematic studies of power bounds for RF-systems, is to provide an overview and intuitive feel for how power consumption and sensitivity relates for low-power receivers. This was done by setting up basic circuit schematics for different radio receiver architectures to find analytical expressions for their output signal-to-noise ratio including power consumption, bandwidth, sensitivity, and carrier frequency. The analytical expressions and optimizations of the circuits give us relations between dc-energy-per-bit and receiver sensitivity, which can be compared to recent published low-power receivers. The parameter set used in the analysis is meant to reflect typical values for an integrated 90 nm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor fabrication processes, and typical small sized RF lumped components.

This brief analyzes the effect of capacitor variation on the design of high-resolution nonbinary-weighted successive-approximation-register analog-to-digital converters in terms of radix, conversion steps, and accuracy. Moreover, the limitation caused by the one-side redundancy of the nonbinary-weighted network is addressed and a corresponding solution with a mathematical derivation is provided. In order to relax the mismatch requirement on the capacitor sizing while still ensuring enough linearity, a bottom-up weight calibration technique accounting for noise and offset errors is proposed, and its effectiveness is demonstrated. This calibration approach can be easily incorporated into a charge-redistribution converter without modifying its main architecture and conversion sequence.

Resonant clock distribution networks are known as low-power alternatives for conventional power-hungry buffer-driven clock networks. In this paper, we investigate the simultaneous switching noise (SSN) in a resonant clock network compared to that in conventional clocking. Analytical and simulation results show that employing the clock generated by a resonant clock network reduces the SSN voltage on power supply rails. The main drawback of using a sinusoidal clock is that the short-circuit power increases in the clocked devices. This problem is also investigated and discussed analytically.

A comparative design study of ultra-low-power discrete-time ΔΣ modulators (ΔΣ Ms) suited for medical implant devices is presented. Aiming to reduce the analog power consumption, the objective is to investigate the effectiveness of the switched-capacitor passive Þlter. Two design variants of 2nd-order ΔΣ are analyzed and compared to a power-optimized standard active modulator ΔΣΜ_ΑΑ. The first variant ΔΣΜ_ΑP employs an active filer in the 1st stage and a passive filter in the less critical 2nd stage. The second variant (OTA-less ΔΣΜ_pp) makes use of passive Þlters in both stages. For practical verfication, all three modulators are implemented on a single chip in 65 nm CMOS technology. Designed for 500-Hz signal bandwidth, the ΔΣΜ_ΑΑ, ΔΣΜ_ΑP and ΔΣΜ_pp achieve 76 dB, 70 dB and 67 dB peak SNDR, while consuming 2.1 μW, 1.27 μW, and 0.92 μW, respectively, from a 0.9 V supply. Furthermore, the ΔΣΜ_pp can operate at a supply voltage reduced to 0.7 V, achieving a 65 dB SNDR at 430 nW power and 0.296 pJ/step.

This paper presents a simple and robust low-power Delta I pound modulator for accurate ADCs in implantable cardiac rhythm management devices such as pacemakers. Taking advantage of the very low signal bandwidth of 500 Hz which enables high oversampling ratio, the objective is to obtain high SNDR and low power consumption, while limiting the complexity of the modulator to a second-order architecture. Significant power reduction is achieved by utilizing a two-stage load-compensated OTA as well as the low-V-T devices in analog circuits and switches, allowing the modulator to operate at 0.9 V supply. Fabricated in a 65 nm CMOS technology, the modulator achieves 80 dB peak SNR and 76 dB peak SNDR over a 500 Hz signal bandwidth. With a power consumption of 2.1 mu W, the modulator obtains 0.4 pJ/step FOM. To the authors knowledge, this is the lowest reported FOM, compared to the previously reported second-order modulators for such low-speed applications. The achieved FOM is also comparable to the best reported results from the higher-order Delta I pound modulators.

This brief presents an 8-GS/s 12-bit input ΔΣ digital-to-analog converter (DAC) with 200-MHz bandwidth in 65-nm CMOS. The high sampling rate is achieved by a two-channel interleaved MASH 1–1 digital ΔΣ modulator with 3-bit output, resulting in a highly digital DAC with only seven current cells. The two-channel interleaving allows the use of a single clock for both the logic and the final multiplexing. This requires each channel to operate at half the sampling rate, which is enabled by a high-speed pipelined MASH structure with robust static logic. Measurement results show that the DAC achieves 200-MHz bandwidth, 26-dB SNDR, and $-$57-dBc IMD3, with a power consumption of 68 mW at 1-V digital and 1.2-V analog supplies. This architecture shows potential for use in transmitter baseband for wideband wireless communication.

The effect of temperature variation on pulse height determination accuracy is determined for a photon counting multibin silicon detector developed for spectral CT. Theoretical predictions of the temperature coefficient of the gain and offset are similar to values derived from synchrotron radiation measurements in a temperature controlled environment. By means of statistical modeling, we conclude that temperature changes affect all channels equally and with separate effects on gain and threshold offset. The combined effect of a 1 degrees C temperature increase is to decrease the detected energy by 0.1 keV for events depositing 30 keV. For the electronic noise, no statistically significant temperature effect was discernible in the data set, although theory predicts a weak dependence. The method is applicable to all x-ray detectors operating in pulse mode.

Class-E amplifiers are attractive for wireless handsets because of their high efficiency and simple implementation. However, it requires inductors in its output matching network that are inherently low Q components affecting efficiency and may require significantly large area in fully integrated implementation. In this paper a novel approach of implementing parallel circuit differential class-E amplifier is presented. Instead of using an inductor parallel to the transistor drain of each amplifier, a single capacitor at the single ended side of the balun provides the parallel inductance effect to the switching transistors. As a result, number of inductors required for circuit implementation is reduced which means reduced losses, less area and better tuning of reactance can be achieved. A test circuit is implemented in 0.13 mu m CMOS process. Measurement results verify the validity of the concept. The Power Amplifier achieves 22 dBm output power at 2.4 GHz from a 2.5 V with an overall Power Added Efficiency of 38 %.

This paper presents a model-based phase-only predistortion method suitable for outphasing radio frequency (RF) power amplifiers (PA). The predistortion method is based on a model of the amplifier with a constant gain factor and phase rotation for each outphasing signal, and a predistorter with phase rotation only. Exploring the structure of the outphasing PA, the problem can be reformulated from a nonconvex problem into a convex least-squares problem, and the predistorter can be calculated analytically. The method has been evaluted for 5MHz Wideband Code-Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) and Long Term Evolution (LTE) uplink signals with Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) of 3.5 dB and 6.2 dB, respectively, applied to a fully integrated Class-D outphasing RF PA in 65nm CMOS. At 1.95 GHz for a 5.5V supply voltage, the measured output power of the PA was +29.7dBm with a power-added efficiency (PAE) of 26.6 %. For the WCDMA signal with +26.0dBm of channel power, the measured Adjacent Channel Leakage Ratio (ACLR) at 5MHz and 10MHz offsets were -46.3 dBc and -55.6 dBc with predistortion, compared to -35.5 dBc and -48.1 dBc without predistortion. For the LTE signal with +23.3dBm of channel power, the measured ACLR at 5MHz offset was -43.5 dBc with predistortion, compared to -34.1 dBc without predistortion.

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This article presents the design and evaluation of a linear 3.3V SiGe power amplifier for 3G and 4G femtocells with 18dBm modulated output power at 2140 MHz. Different biasing schemes to achieve high linearity with low standby current were studied. The adjacent channel power ratio linearity performance with wide-band code division multiple access (3G) and long term evolution (4G) downlink signals were compared and differences analysed and explained.

An edge-on silicon strip detector designed for photon-counting spectral computed tomography (CT) is presented. Progress on the development of an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) to process the pulses and sort them into energy bins is reported upon. The ASIC and detector are evaluated in terms of electronic noise, energy resolution, count rate linearity under high-frequency periodic pulses, threshold variation and gain. The high-frequency periodic pulses are injected both by means of an external pulse generator and a pulsed laser illuminating the silicon diode. The pulsed laser system has similar to 100 ps pulse width and thus generates near instantaneous pulses in the diode, thus mimicking real X-ray conversions. less thanbrgreater than less thanbrgreater thanThe evaluation shows a low thermal noise level of 0.77 key RMS, an energy resolution of 1.5 keV RMS when electron-hole pairs are generated in the detector diode by the laser injection. The test results furthermore indicate a good energy-discriminating capability of the detector with the thresholds spread out, assigning the external pulses to higher and higher energy bins as the pulse intensity is increased.

This paper presents the design and analysis of a low-power Class-D stage in 90nm CMOS featuring a harmonic suppression technique, which cancels the 3rd harmonic by shaping the output voltage waveform. Only digital circuits are used and the short-circuit current present in Class-D inverterbased output stages is eliminated, relaxing the buffer requirements. Using buffers with reduced drive strength for the output stage reduces the 5th harmonic at the output, as the rise and fall time of the output voltage increase. Operating at 900MHz, the measured output power was +5.1dBm with Drain Efficiency (DE) and Power-Added Efficiency (PAE) of 73% and 59% at 1.2V. The 3rd and 5th harmonics were suppressed by 34dB and 4dB, respectively, compared to an inverter-based Class-D stage.1

This brief presents a behavioral model structure and a model-based phase-only predistortion method that are suitable for outphasing RF amplifiers. The predistortion method is based on a model of the amplifier with a constant gain factor and phase rotation for each outphasing signal, and a predistorter with phase rotation only. The method has been used for enhanced data rates for GSM evolution (EDGE) and wideband code-division multiple-access (WCDMA) signals applied to a Class-D outphasing RF amplifier with an on-chip transformer used for power combining in 90-nm CMOS. The measured peak power at 2 GHz was +10.3 dBm with a drain efficiency and power-added efficiency of 39% and 33%, respectively. For an EDGE 8 phase-shift-keying (8-PSK) signal with a phase error of 3 degrees between the two input outphasing signals, the measured power at 400 kHz offset was -65.9 dB with predistortion, compared with -53.5 dB without predistortion. For a WCDMA signal with the same phase error between the input signals, the measured adjacent channel leakage ratio at 5-MHz offset was -50.2 dBc with predistortion, compared with -38.0 dBc without predistortion.

The pad pitch of modern RF ICs is in order of few tens of micrometers. Connecting the large number of high speed I/Os to outside world with good signal fidelity and low cost is extremely challenging. To cope with this requirement, we need reflection-free transmission lines from on-chip pad to on-board SMA connectors. Such a transmission line is very hard to design due to the difference in on-chip and on-board feature size and the requirement for extremely large bandwidth. In this paper, we propose the use of narrow tracks close to chip and wide tracks away from the chip. This narrow to wide transition in width results in impedance discontinuity. A step change in substrate thickness is utilized to cancel the effect of the width discontinuity, thus achieving a reflection-free microstrip. To verify the concept several microstrips were designed on multilayer FR4 PCB without any additional manufacturing steps. The TDR measurements reveal that impedance variation is less then 3Ω for 50Ω microstrip when the width changes from 165μm to 940μm and substrate thickness changes from 100μm to 500μm. The Sparameter measurement on same microstrip shows S11 better then -9dB for the frequency range 1-6GHz.

A simulation technique is developed in TCAD to study the non-linear behavior of RF power transistor. The technique is based on semiconductor transport equations to swot up the overall non-linearity’s occurring in RF power transistor. Computational load-pull simulation technique (CLP) developed in our group, is further extended to study the non-linear effects inside the transistor structure by conventional two-tone RF signals, and initial simulations were done in time domain. The technique is helpful to detect, understand the phenomena and its mechanism which can be resolved and improve the transistor performance. By this technique, the third order intermodulation distortion (IMD₃) was observed at different power levels. The technique was successfully implemented on a laterally-diffused field effect transistor (LDMOS). The value of IMD₃ obtained is −22 dBc at 1-dB compression point (P _{1 dB}) while at 10 dB back off the value increases to −36 dBc. Simulation results were experimentally verified by fabricating a power amplifier with the similar LDMOS transistor.

A systematic approach to the power consumption of analog circuits is presented. The power consumption is related to basic circuit requirements, as dynamic range, bandwidth, noise figure and sampling speed and is considering basic device and device scaling behavior. Several kinds of circuits are treated, as samplers, amplifiers, filters and oscillators. The objective is to derive lower bounds to power consumption in analog circuits, to be used as design targets when designing power-constrained analog systems.

This paper describes the design of a power amplifier (PA) for 802.11n WLAN fabricated in 65 nm CMOS technology. The PA utilizes 3.3 V thick gate oxide (5.2 nm) transistors and a two-stage differential configuration with integrated transformers for input and interstage matching. A methodology used to extract the layout parasitics from electromagnetic (EM) simulations is described. For a 72.2 Mbit/s, 64-QAM, 802.11n OFDM signal at an average and peak output power of 11.6 and 19.6 dBm, respectively, the measured EVM is 3.8%. The PA meets the spectral mask up to an average output power of 17 dBm.

This article compares the performance of two different GaN transistor technologies, GaN HEMT on silicon substrate (PA1) and GaN on SiC (PA2), utilized in two broadband power amplifiers operating at 0.7 to 1.8 GHz. The study explores the broadband power amplifier potential of both GaN HEMT technologies for phased-array radar (PAR) and electronic warfare (EW) systems. The measured maximum output power for PA1 is 42.5 dBm (18 W) with a maximum PAE of 66 percent and a gain of 19.5 dB. The measured maximum output power for PA2 is 40 dBm with a PAE of 37 percent and a power gain slightly above 10 dB. The high power gain, ME, wider bandwidth and unconditional stability was obtained without feedback for the amplifier based on GaN HEMT technology, fabricated on Si substrate.

A 2.5 GS/s flash ADC, fabricated in 90nm CMOS utilizes comparator redundancy to avoid traditional power, speed and accuracy trade‐offs. The redundancy removes the need to control comparator offsets, allowing the large process‐variation induced mismatch of small devices in nanometer technologies. This enables the use of small‐sized, ultra‐low‐power comparators with clock‐gating capabilities in order to reduce the power dissipation. The chosen calibration method enables an overall low‐power solution and measurement results show that the ADC dissipates 30 mW at 1.2 V. With 63 comparators, the ADC achieves 3.9 effective number of bits.

This paper presents a low-power digital DLL-based clock generator. Once the DLL is locked, it operates in open-loop mode to reduce deterministic clock jitter and the power dissipation caused by DLL dithering. To keep track of any potential phase error introduced by environmental variations, a compensation mechanism is employed. In addition, a robust DLL-based frequency multiplication technique is proposed. The DLL-based clock generator is designed and fabricated in a 90 nm CMOS process in two different versions. Utilizing the proposed technique, the output jitter caused by DLL dithering is reduced significantly. Furthermore, the measured total power savings in the open-loop mode in comparison with the conventional closed-loop operation is about 14%.

This brief presents an experimental study on how to take advantage of the increasing process variations in nanoscale CMOS technologies to achieve small and low-power high-speed analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). Particularly, the need for a reference voltage generation network has been eliminated in a 4-bit Flash ADC in 90-nm CMOS, with small-sized comparators. The native comparator offsets, resulting from the process-variation-induced mismatch, are used as the only source of reference levels, and redundancy is used to acquire the desired resolution. The measured performance of the 1.5-GS/s ADC is comparable to traditional state-of-the art ADCs and dissipates 23 mW.

In this paper a flexible RF-sampling front-end primarily intended for WLAN standards operating in the 2.4 GHz and 5–6 GHz bands is presented. The circuit is implemented with on-chip Design for Test (DfT) features in 0.13 μm CMOS process. The front-end consists of a wideband LNA, a sampling IQ down-converter implemented as switched-capacitor decimation filter, test attenuator (TA), and RF detectors. The architecture is generic and scalable in frequency. It can operate at a sampling frequency up to 3 GHz and RF carrier up to 6 GHz with 29 subsampling. The selectable decimation factor of 8 or 16 makes the A/D conversion feasible. The frequency response, linearity, and NF of the whole frontend have been measured. The power consumption of complete RF front-end is 176 mW. The on-chip DfT features are helpful in reduction of overall test cost and time in volume production. The measurement results show the feasibility of DfT approach for multiband radio receiver design using standard CMOS process.

Si-LDMOS transistor is studied by TCAD simulation for improved RF performance. In LDMOS structure, a low-doped reduced surface field (RESURF) region is used to obtain high breakdown voltage, but it reduces the transistor RF performance due to high on-resistance. The interface charges between oxide and the RESURF region are studied and found to have a strong impact on the transistor performance both in DC and RF. The presence of excess interface state charges at the RESURF region results not only higher DC drain current but also improved RF performance in terms of power, gain and efficiency. The most important achievement is the enhancement of operating frequency and RF output power is obtained well above 1 W/mm up to 4 GHz.

This paper is focused on analysis and suppression of clock jitter in charge recovery resonant clock distribution networks. In the presented analysis, by considering the data-dependent nature of the generated jitter, the reason for the undesired jitter-peaking phenomenon is investigated. The analysis has been verified by measurements on a test chip fabricated in 0.13-mum standard CMOS process. The chip includes a fully integrated 1.5-GHz LC clock resonator with a passive (bufferless) clock distribution network, which directly drives the clocked devices in pipelined data path circuits. Furthermore, a jitter suppression technique based on injection locking is presented. Measurement results show about 50% peak-to-peak clock jitter reduction from 28.4 ps down to 14.5 ps after injection locking.

In this paper we present two designs of CMOS blocks suitable for integration with RF frontend blocks for test purposes. Those are a programmable RF test attenuator and a reconfigurable low noise amplifier (LNA), optimized with respect to their function and location in the circuit. We discuss their performances in terms of the test- and normal operation mode. The presented application model aims at a transceiver under loopback test with enhanced controllability and detectability. The circuits are designed for 0.35μm CMOS process. Simulation results of the receiver frontend operating in 2.4 GHz band are presented showing tradeoffs between the performance and test functionality.

In this paper we present an SC filter for RF downconversion using the direct RF sampling and decimation technique. The circuit architecture is generic and it features high image rejection for wideband signals and good linearity. An SC implementation in 0.13μm CMOS suitable for an RF of 2.4 GHz and 20 MHz signal bandwidth is presented as a demonstrator. Simulation results obtained using Cadence Spectre simulation tools are included.

An active recursive filter approach is proposed for the implementaion of an inductorless, tuneable RF filter in BiCMOS. A test circuit was designed and manufactured in a 0.35 μm SiGe BiCMOS technology. In simulations, the feasibility of this type of filter was demonstrated and reasonably good performance was obtained. The simulations show a center frequency tuning range from 6 to 9.4 GHz and a noise figure of 8.8 to 10.4 dB depending on center frequency. Gain and Q-value are tunable in a wide range. Simulated IIP-3 and 1-dB compression point is −26 and −34 dBm respectively, simulated at the center frequency 8.5 GHz and with 15 dB gain. Measurements on the fabricated device shows a center frequency tuning range from 6.6 to 10 GHz, i.e. slightly higher center frequencies were measured than the simulated.

In large-scale and high-speed digital systems, global synchronization has frequently been used to protect clocked I/O from data failure due to metastability. Synchronous design styles are widely used, easy to grasp and to implement, and also well supported by logic synthesis tools. There are many drawbacks with global synchronization. Most Important is the relationship between physical size and maximum, clock frequency, which will approach its limit as clock frequency and system size increase simultaneously. The purpose of this proposed Globally Updated Mesochronous (GUM) design style is to overcome those drawbacks by identifying all global signal links in the system and adding synchronization circuits to these. System level simplicity, inherited from synchronous design and its tool support, is retained. In this paper, the GUM design style is described, analyzed, and demonstrated. Experimental results from a large-scale high-speed system using three 0.8-µm BiCMOS chips are given. The GUM design style is scaleable and suitable for future system-on-chip applications both on and among chips.

The design of power transistors for microwave applications requires a good understanding of their large signal behaviour in a real circuit context. The computational load-pull simulation technique is a powerful new way to evaluate the full time-domain voltages and currents of microwave power transistors during realistic operation. With this method it is possible to relate details in the time domain voltages and currents to corresponding variations in carrier densities, electrical field, etc. in the device. We have utilised the standard device simulator Medici, directly driven by sine voltage sources on both input and output. The resulting data from the simulations was then analysed using Matlab. Several 4H-SiC MESFET structures were evaluated by this technique and we found the p-type buffer layer doping and thickness to be crucial to obtain an optimum RF power. A 4H-SiC MESFET structure was found to have an output power of 6.2 W/mm at 1 GHz. ⌐ 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Increasing leakage currents combined with reduced noise margins significantly degrade the robustness of wide dynamic circuits. In this paper, we describe two conditional keeper topologies for improving the robustness of sub-130-nm wide dynamic circuits. They are applicable in normal mode of operation as well as during burn-in test. A large fraction of the keepers is activated conditionally, allowing the use of strong keepers with leaky precharged circuits without significant impact on performance of the circuits. Compared to conventional techniques, up to 28% higher performance has been observed for wide dynamic gates in a 130-nm technology. In addition, the proposed burn-in keeper results in 64% active area reduction

The autocorrelation spectrometer is an important instrument for radio astronomy. In satellite-based spectrometers, low power consumption is essential. The correlator chip presented in this paper reduces the power consumption more than five times compared to other full-custom designs. This has been achieved by reducing the number of clocked transistors, using a compact layout of cells, which reduces wire lengths, and using parallel processing of data. Also, the low power performance is combined with a large number of lags and a high data throughput. The correlator performs 0.5-TMAC operations in 416 lags at a sample rate of 1.28-GSample/s with an input data precision of 1.5-b and a correlation period of one second. The chip is also designed to reduce noise generation by using multiple internal clock phases.

We report on the electrical properties of defects introduced by high-energy 5.4 MeV He ions in n-type strained n-SiGe and the impact of this irradiation on the noise properties of Pd/n-Si1-xGex Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs). From the deep level transient spectroscopy measurements, the main defects EA1 and EA2 are observed in both Si and Si0.96Ge0.04 and have energy levels at 0.24 and 0.44 eV, respectively, below the conduction band. EA1 and EA2 have been correlated with the V-V and the P-V pairs, respectively. For both defects EA1 and EA2, the energy level position is found to be the same for x = 0 and 0.04, indicating that such levels are pinned to the conduction band. Furthermore, the impact of the high-energy He-ion irradiation on the electrical noise properties of Pd/n-Si1-xGex SBDs is also studied. From the noise experimental data, the main noise source observed in these irradiated diodes was attributed to the generation-recombination noise inducing an abnormal peak in their noise spectra at around f(1) = 180 Hz. This peak is found to be independent of Ge concentration. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(00)02125-2].

  "Radio Design in Nanometer Technologies" addresses current trends and future directions in radio design for wireless applications. As radio transceivers constitute the major bottleneck in a wireless chipset in terms of power consumption and die size, the radio must be designed in the context of the entire system, end to end. Therefore the book will address wireless systems as well as the DSP parts before it gets into coverage of radio design issues. To that end, the book contains three parts: Part 1 is a general part discussing current and future wireless networks, chipset evolution over the past decade and ending with a discussion on radio requirements for software defined radio(SDR). Part 2 will focus on the digital baseband of a wireless chip set, flexible DSP cores for multi-standard wireless platforms and system-on-chip SoC implementation and design flow issues. Part 3 will be devoted to radio design issues starting at the transceiver level and going down to discuss critical issues facing design of future multi band multi standard radios for emerging wireless standards such as UMTS, WiMaX, MIMO and WLAN in a way that is consistent with the prevailing vision of SDR. As such, the book is the first volume that looks at the integrated radio design problem as a 'piece of a big puzzle', namely the entire chipset or single chip that builds an entire wireless system. This is the only way to successfully design radios to meet the stringent demands of today's increasingly complex wireless systems

In this work we investigate the limitations and describe the operation of passive fully integrated rectifiers in standard CMOS technology for low-voltage piezoelectric harvesters. These harvesters are typical for low-frequency and low-acceleration applications, such as body-motion scenarios, i.e., wearables. We motivate the choice of active rectifiers for low-voltage energy harvesters and techniques to boost the available input voltage to the rectifier. A test circuit recently taped-out in 0.35-μm CMOS is described to illustrate some of the challenges associated with rectifier design for low-voltage energy harvesters. The circuit occupies an area of 210 × 155 μm² and operates at input voltages between 0.6 and 3.3 V. Post-layout simulations shows an efficiency of 79 % at a 0.7-V input.

This paper presents a low-power direct-conversion IQ modulator for ultra-wideband (UWB) communications based on multi-phase duty-cycled sub-harmonic passive mixers. The novelty of the proposed architecture is in employing a quadrature mixer array in such a configuration that the upconvertion of the baseband signal can be performed using a much lower LO frequency, i.e., a sub-harmonic frequency of the carrier. As a result, several benefits can be gained. Requiring a sub-harmonic LO (SHLO) relaxes the requirements on the frequency synthesizer circuitry. Moreover, the need for digital power-hungry or analog inductor-based high frequency LO buffers is alleviated. In addition, since rail-to-rail LO signals can be provided easier and with less power consumption at lower frequencies, we can employ passive mixers in the mixer array to improve the power consumption and linearity of the overall transmitter. Multi-phase LO clocks required by the proposed scheme are provided using a delay-locked loops (DLL). The proposed architecture is utilized in design of a WiMedia-UWB direct-conversion TX in a standard 65-nm CMOS technology. The MC simulation results indicate LO leakage of –68 dBc and sideband rejection of –39 dBc. The overall system draw 6.8 mA from a 1.2 V supply.

This paper presents a quadrature DLL-based architecture for WiMedia ultra-wideband (UWB) frequency synthesis. I and Q carriers are directly generated by combining the quadrature multi-phase outputs of the DLL, using separate edge combiners (EC). A variable-stage voltage-controlled delay line (VCDL) scheme is proposed to provide the corresponding output phases to each EC, without the need for multiplexing the DLL outputs for different bands. Moreover, to prevent possible synthesizer hopping time degradation due to dynamic variations in temperature and voltage, a monitoring mechanism is employed to measure the time error at the instant of band switching, and compensate for it if it is beyond a limited value. The Synthesizer is implemented in a standard 65-nm CMOS technology and the simulation results indicate a hopping time of 4.5 to 8.8 ns across process corners. Simulated phase noise at 1 MHz offset from 4488 MHz carrier is -115 dBc/Hz and the worst case spur suppression is -31 dBc. The synthesizer consumes 13.9 mA from a 1.2-V supply.

Data-rate of wireless links are increasing fast, particularly when new carrier bands with very high bandwidth becomes available. Utilizing the full bandwidth for a single carrier facilitates very large baud-rates. When the baud-rates approaches or exceeds Gbaud, the implementation of the digital baseband is no longer a simple extension of existing methods. In the present paper we propose a resource efficient implementation of digital baseband for multi-Gbaud rates in a standard FPGA utilizing Xilinx Simulink-based System generator design and verification tool.

Postlingually acquired hearing impairment (HI) is associated with changes in the representation of sound in semantic long-term memory. An indication of this is the lower performance on visual rhyme judgment tasks in conditions where phonological and orthographic cues mismatch, requiring high reliance on phonological representations. In this study, event-related potentials (ERPs) were used for the first time to investigate the neural correlates of phonological processing in visual rhyme judgments in participants with acquired HI and normal hearing (NH). Rhyme task word pairs rhymed or not and had matching or mismatching orthography. In addition, the inter-stimulus interval (ISI) was manipulated to be either long (800 ms) or short (50 ms). Long ISIs allow for engagement of explicit, top-down processes, while short ISIs limit the involvement of such mechanisms. We hypothesized lower behavioral performance and N400 and N2 deviations in HI in the mismatching rhyme judgment conditions, particularly in short ISI. However, the results showed a different pattern. As expected, behavioral performance in the mismatch conditions was lower in HI than in NH in short ISI, but ERPs did not differ across groups. In contrast, HI performed on a par with NH in long ISI. Further, HI, but not NH, showed an amplified N2-like response in the non-rhyming, orthographically mismatching condition in long ISI. This was also the rhyme condition in which participants in both groups benefited the most from the possibility to engage top-down processes afforded with the longer ISI. Taken together, these results indicate an early ERP signature of HI in this challenging phonological task, likely reflecting use of a compensatory strategy. This strategy is suggested to involve increased reliance on explicit mechanisms such as articulatory recoding and grapheme-to-phoneme conversion.

In this paper we present a design of a low-IF receiver frontend using a selective N-path filter which serves blocker rejection, image rejection, and downconversion. The filter makes use of quadrature impedance upconversion technique using multiphase clocking and can be programmed by baseband capacitance and gm-cell transconductance values to meet the low-IF criterion in various cases. Presented is both a mathematical model of the filter and circuit simulation results including parasitic effects. Image rejection of 14 dB at IF that is provided by the filter mitigates the demands for the ultimate image rejection by the IQ mode. The blocker rejection at IF is larger than 50 dB. Designed in in 65 nm CMOS the low-IF receiver frontend with a modified N-path filter in simulations achieves NF <; 6 dB and OOB IIP3 > +8 dBm in 0.5-1 GHz band.

This paper presents a 10-bit SAR ADC in 65 nm CMOS for medical implant applications. The ADC consumes 3-nW power and achieves 9.1 ENOB at 1 kS/s. The ultra-low-power consumption is achieved by using an ADC architecture with maximal simplicity, a small split-array capacitive DAC, a bottom-plate sampling approach reducing charge injection error and allowing full-range input sampling without extra voltage sources, and a latch-based SAR control logic resulting in reduced power and low transistor count. Furthermore, a multi-V_t circuit design approach allows the ADC to meet the target performance with a single supply voltage of 0.7 V. The ADC achieves a FOM of 5.5 fJ/conversion-step. The INL and DNL errors are 0.61 LSB and 0.55 LSB, respectively.

A 0.7 V 400 nW fourth-order active-passive ΔΣ modulator with one active stage is presented in this paper using standard CMOS 65 nm technology. The modulator achieves 84 dB SNR and 80.3 dB SNDR in a signal bandwidth of 500 Hz with a sampling frequency of 256 kHz. The input-feedforward architecture is used to improve the voltage swing before the comparator of the traditional passive modulators, which enables simpler comparator design with no preamplifier as well as cascading three successive power-efficient passive filters. The first active stage is used to reduce the comparator's noise and offset and to minimize the capacitive area. The modulator achieves a high power-efficiency (47 fJ/step) in terms of widely used figure of merit.

A  0.5-V  ultra-low-power  second-order  DT  DS  modulator  is  presented  in  this  paper  for  medical  implant  devices.  The  modulator  employs  2nd-order  passive  low-pass filter  and  ultra-low-voltage  building  blocks,  including preamplifier, regenerative comparator, and clock controller, in order  to enable operation near 0.5 V supply. A  low-noise and gain-enhanced  single-stage  preamplifier  is  developed  using  a body-driven technique. Passive filter is gain boosted by power-efficient charge-redistribution amplification  scheme. Designed in  a  65nm CMOS  technology,  the modulator  achieves  65  dB peak SNDR over a 500 Hz signal bandwidth, while it consumes 250 nW  from  a  0.5 V  supply. The modulator  is  functional  at 0.45V and obtains 52 dB SNR, while consuming 200 nW.

Todays aviation systems are strongly dependent on electronics. Avionics (i.e., aviation electronics) should be highly reliable due to the nature of their applications. CMOS technology, which is widely used in the fabrication of integrated circuits, is continuously scaled to achieve higher performance and higher integration density (i.e., the well-known Moores law). This scaling property creates new challenges in reliability of avionics. As an example, the aging process is speeded up resulting in shorter time to wear-out. This paper investigates reliability challenges in design of avionics caused by silicon aging. It is shown that in the circuits and systems designed in modern CMOS technology, aging phenomenon have to be considered as a serious concern.

This paper presents a low-power 2^nd-order discrete-time (DT) ΔΣ analog-to-digital converter (ADC) aimed for medical implant devices. The designed ΔΣ modulator with two active integrators (filters) employs power-efficient two-stage load-compensated OTAs with minimal load and rail-to-rail output swing, which provides higher power-efficiency than the two-stage Miller OTA. The modulator, implemented in a 65nm CMOS technology with a core area of 0.033 mm², achieves 76-dB peak SNDR over a 500 Hz signal bandwidth, while consuming 2.1 µW from a 0.9 V supply voltage. Compared to previously reported modulators for such signal bandwidths, the achieved performance (FOM of 0.4 pJ/step) make the presented modulator one of the best among sub-1-V modulators in term of most commonly used figure of merit.

We have developed an ultra-fast photon-counting energy-resolved application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for spectral computed tomography (CT). A comprehensive characterization has been carried out to investigate the performance of the ASIC in terms of energy resolution under different photon flux rates and the count rate linearity in photon-counting mode. An energy resolution of 4.7 % has been achieved for 59.5 keV low flux photons. The count rate performance of the ASIC was measured with 120 kVp polychromatic x-rays. The results indicate that the count rate linearity can be kept for a flux rate up to 150 Mphotons s^-1 mm^-2 with retained energy information, and this value is increased to be 250 Mphotons s^-1 mm^-2 in photon-counting mode

A wideband, high dynamic range RF amplitude detector design aimed at on-chip test is presented. Boosting gain and sub-ranging techniques are applied to the detection circuit to increase gain over the full range of input amplitudes without compromising the input impedance. Followed by a variable gain amplifier (VGA) and a 9-bit A/D converter the RF detector system, designed in 65 nm CMOS, achieves in simulation the minimum detectable signal of -58 dBm and 63 dB dynamic range over 0.5 GHz - 9 GHz band with input impedance larger than 4 kΩ. The detector is intended for on-chip calibration and the attained specifications put it among the reported state-of-the-art solutions.

A CMOS fully differential high gain-bandwidth (GBW) product operational amplifier (OpAmp) is presented in this paper. In order to achieve a high gain, the Nested gain-boosting technique [1] is employed. The design is implemented in a 1.1V standard 65nm CMOS process. The DC-gain of the OpAmp is larger than 77.9dB with the unity-gain frequency of 4.61GHz while achieving 76.2 degrees of phase margin (PM). Applying the maximum input swing, the output signal settles to 0.01% accuracy in less than 3.8ns. The output total harmonic distortion (THD) of the OpAmp is 0.586% for maximum signal swing at the frequencies near Nyquist frequency with the input-referred noise of 5.4nV/_√Hz. The high GBW product of this design makes it suitable for 12-bit 200MS/s pipelined ADC applications.

A new silicon strip detector with sub-millimeter pixel size operated in single photon-counting mode has been developed for use in spectral computed tomography (CT). An ultra fast application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) specially designed for fast photon-counting application is used to process the pulses and sort them into eight energy bins. This report characterizes the ASIC and detector in terms of thermal noise (0.77 keV RMS), energy resolution when electron-hole pairs are generated in the detector diode (1.5 keV RMS) and Poissonian count rate with retained count rate linearity and energy resolution (200 Mcps•mm^-2). The performance of the photon-counting detector has been tested using a picosecond pulsed laser system to inject energy into the detector, simulating x-ray interactions. The laser testing results indicate a good energy-discriminating capability of the detector, assigning the pulses to higher and higher energy bins as the intensity of the laser pulses are increased.

A wideband RF frontend for flexible radio applications is presented. A target is the performance adequate for multistandard 3G/ 4G systems operating in frequency range 0.8-6 GHz. Because of relaxed requirements on band select filters, more demands are placed on linearity while the necessary noise performance is assured. We discuss architecture with Low Noise Transconductance Amplifier (LNTA) and a passive mixer terminated by a low impedance load. One variant of it is a Miller integrator where its input impedance is upconverted by the mixer and provides partial attenuation for blockers at RF. We also investigate a variant with a capacitive load followed by a high impedance transconductance amplifier (TCA). In either variant there is a tradeoff between the frontend NF and IP3, and also between NF and the blocker attenuation. Optimization of the 65 nm CMOS frontend is attained by careful sizing of the mixer switches. The frontend simulation results show NF <; 3 dB, IIP3 >; +4 dBm and blocker attenuation >; 20 dB. Finally, we also discuss the demands placed on the A/D converter resolution in terms of the frontend and the receiver overall NF.

This paper presents a novel approach to design a programmable-bandwidth amplifier intended for ultra-low-power switched-capacitor application. The proposed topology is based on the common load-compensated two-stage OTA. The GBW is enhanced by replicating the second amplifying stage. Implemented in a 65-nm CMOS technology and approved by the post-layout simulation, the GBW is programmed in three operation modes (400, 700, and 900 kHz), while 52-dB DC gain is preserved in a 5-pF load. The OTA consumes 275-nW static power in a 400 kHz unity-gain frequency and 375-nW static power in a 900 kHz unity-gain frequency from 0.9-V supply.

Application of the ΣΔ modulation technique to the on-chip spectral test for high-speed A/D converters is presented. The harmonic HD2/HD3 and intermodulation IM2/IM3 test is obtained with one-bit ΣΔ sequence stored in a cyclic memory or generated on line, and applied to an ADC under test through a driving buffer and a simple reconstruction filter. To achieve a dynamic range (DR) suitable for high-performance spectral measurements a frequency plan is used taking into account the type of ΣΔ modulation (low-pass and band-pass) including the FFT processing gain. Higher order modulation schemes are avoided to manage the ΣΔ quantization noise without resorting to a more complicated filter. For spectral measurements up to the Nyquist frequency, we propose a dedicated low-pass/band-pass ΣΔ modulation scheme that limits spreading of the low-frequency quantization noise by ADC under test that tends to obstruct the test measurements at high frequencies. Correction technique for NRTZ encoding suitable for ADCs with very high clock frequencies is put in perspective. The presented technique is illustrated by simulation examples of a Nyquist-rate ADC under test.

This paper presents a Class-D outphasing RF Power Amplifier (PA) which can operate at a 5.5V supply and deliver +32dBm at 1.85 GHz in a standard 130nm CMOS technology. The PA utilizes four on-chip transformers to combine the outputs of eight Class-D stages. The Class-D stages utilize a cascode configuration, driven by an AC-coupled low-voltage driver, to allow a 5.5 V supply in the 1.2/2.5 V 130nm process without excessive device voltage stress. Spectral and modulation requirements were met when a WCDMA and an LTE signal (20 MHz, 16-QAM) were applied to the outphasing PA. At +28.0 dBm channel power for the WCDMA signal, the measured ACLR at 5 MHz and 10 MHz offset were −38.7 dBc and −47.0 dBc, respectively. At +24.9 dBm channel power for the LTE signal, the measured ACLR at 20MHz offset was −34.9 dBc. To the authors' best knowledge, the PA presented in this work has a 3.9 dB higher output power compared to published CMOS Class-D RF PAs.

The paper shows the implementation of digital FIR filter using ultra-low power logic components. Source coupled logic is used and operated at sub-threshold region to achieve low power consumption while keeping a satisfactory output swing. The STSCL (sub-threshold source coupled logic) circuit is added with controllable voltage-level feature to minimize overall leakage current flow, including both gate leakage and sub-threshold. Seven-stage ring oscillators are implemented in CMOS, STSCL and our proposed logic at similar supply voltage to observe the differences with power consumption for the proposed technique came at nW range. Later on the FIR was design in both CMOS and proposed with measurement results shown in the paper. All measurements for are shown using 65 nm process technology, at a supply voltage of 0.5 V.

In this paper we discuss possible variants of A/D conversion in multi-standard and pure software-defined radio (SDR) receiver architectures. The requirements for the ADC dynamic range and linearity are formulated for the contemporary personal and data-communication RF standards. Two implementation examples of a ADC in 90 nm and 65 nm CMOS are presented. These are a multi-bit first-order ADC aimed at baseband conversion and a one-bit second-order aimed at direct RF conversion, respectively. With limited channel filtering the performance achieved for the baseband ADC is shown to be sufficient. However, for the direct RF ADC the dynamic range and linearity requirements cannot be fully satisfied. The presented work can be considered a step ahead toward a successful implementation of the true SDR in the future.

This paper presents a wideband inductorless Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) using a technique for canceling 2^nd and 3^rd order intermodulation products at the same time and hence achieving high second and third order Input Intercept Point (IIP2 and IIP3) at RF and microwave frequencies. The LNA also makes use of noise canceling stage to achieve low noise characteristics and low noise figure in the whole bandwidth. The LNA was designed in 90-nm CMOS process and consists of a shunt feedback common-source input stage to provide wideband input impedance matching, followed by a noise canceling stage. The common source input stage employs two transistors in parallel biased at different operating regions which perform distortion cancellation. IIP2 and IIP3 of the designed LNA are +41dBm and +2.4dBm respectively. The LNA achieved the voltage gain of 17dB while having the noise figure below 2dB from 500MHz-5GHz.

Over the years, production test of digital ICs has reached a significant degree of maturity. This progress has been enabled by several techniques, such as fault simulation, test-pattern generation and the built-in-self-test (BiST). Unlike this, much less success has been achieved in the analog/RF and mixed-signal ICs domain, where functional testing has been widely used and the major advances have been in the capabilities of expensive automatic test equipment (ATE). At present, the advancing complexity and performance of mixed-signal and RF ICs are pushing functional test methods and the ATE to the edge of their limits. In this context, alternative approaches based on analog fault modeling, design for testability (DfT), and BiST, so far not appreciated by industry, can largely alleviate the problem and cut the test costs.In this tutorial the essentials of the on-chip test for IC RF transceivers will be presented. The available on chip baseband DSP can serve as a tester while the RF front-end is reconfigured for test. The basic test setup is a loopback, enabled by a test attenuator and in some cases by an offset mixer, too. Different variants of this setup adopt the bypassing technique to boost testability. Also the observability blocks (RF detectors) can be incorporated. The existing limitations and tradeoffs in terms of test feasibility, controllability and observability versus the chip performance will be discussed. The fault-oriented approach and the sensitization techniques will be emphasized. Implementation examples in CMOS technology will be included as well.

This paper presents a high-speed single channel pipeline analog-to-digital converter sampling at 2.4 GS/s which, to the authors' best knowledge, is the fastest reported for pipeline converters. The use of a time-borrowing clocking scheme eliminates the comparator latency from the critical path and together with the use of fast open-loop current-mode amplifiers the high sample rate is achieved. Implemented in a 65nm general purpose CMOS technology the effective number of bits is above 4.7 in the Nyquist band, being 5.4 and 4.9 at DC and Nyquist respectively. This shows that very fast pipeline ADCs are possible to implement as key building blocks in interleaved structures.

This paper presents a low-power Class-D stage featuring a new harmonic reduction technique, which cancels the 3^rd harmonic and reduces the 5^th harmonic. The technique creates a voltage level of V_DD/2 from a single supply voltage to shape the drain voltage, uses only digital circuits and eliminates the short-circuit current present in inverter-based Class-D stages. From a single Class-D stage operating at 900MHz, the measured output power is +5.1dBm with Drain Efficiency (DE) and Power-Added Efficiency (PAE) of 73% and 59% for a 1.2V supply, while 2^nd to 4^th harmonics are measured to be -37dBc without any filtering. Connecting two Class-D stages to a PCB-mounted transformer in an outphasing configuration, the overall amplifier is linear enough to amplify EDGE 8-PSK and WCDMA modulated signals at 900MHz without pre-distortion of the input signals or any other linearization technique.

In this paper, a new asymmetric 6T (AS6T) SRAM cell is presented in a standard 90-nm CMOS technology employing separate bitline and wordline for read operation. Utilizing separate bitline and wordline during read operation decouples the other cell node from the bitline, hence, enhancing the read static noise margin (SNM) by almost 2 times as compared to the conventional 6T SRAM. The read SNM of 6T and AS6T SRAM cells during a read operation in 1.0 V supply is 85 mV and 159 mV, respectively. The mean μ of the hold SNM for both cells are well above 140 mV, however, the μ of the conventional 6T SRAM is larger than that of AS6T cell. The impact of process parameter variations on read and hold noise margin of the asymmetric 6T cell and the conventional 6T cell, considering various supply voltages, is investigated. The results demonstrate yield improvement, up to 99.5%, and indicate that the supply voltage can scale down to 0.45 V.

This paper addresses a built-in-self-test (BiST) to characterize IP3 linearity of a RF receiver front-end. A two-tone stimulus is generated by a phase-lock loop (PLL) in GHz frequency range. The PLL is designed to keep the frequency difference between the two tones under control and in this way to avoid a possible injection-locking. One of the oscillation frequencies and the difference (beat) frequency can be externally controlled. According to the test requirements the phase noise and nonlinear distortion of the two-tone generator are considered as a merit for the VCO and analog adder design. A highly linear analog adder with output referred IP3 of more than +15 dBm is used to generate the RF stimulus. The two-tone power across 50 Ω receiver input impedance can be more than -25 dBm with very low intermodulation distortion of P_IM3 = -75 dBc. The receiver performance is not affected significantly by the test set-up. Simulations for linearity and noise performance of the PLL designed in 65nm CMOS show sufficient potential for on-chip IP3 measurements in the GHz frequency range.

In today's automotive vehicles, electromagnetic interference (EMI) from electronic circuits has become a serious concern. The discussion in this paper proves that a clock signal generated by a resonant clock distribution network exhibits better EMI performance compared to that of a conventional buffer-driven clock network. This discussion is supported by analyzing different clock spectrums and using a simple model of simultaneous switching noise (SSN). According to simulation results presented in a 90-nm CMOS process, using a sinusoidal clock instead of a trapezoidal one, the magnitude of the first tone in the spectrum of SSN is reduced at least by 6.7 dB.

A 900 MHz differential Class-E amplifier with finite dc inductance has been designed in CMOS. The large inductance of RF choke has been replaced with a finite inductance that provides the required inductive reactance of the class E amplifier. Resonance circuit is realized without series inductor by novel use of lattice LC balun. The amplifier delivers 26.8 dBm power to a 50 O load from a 2.2 V supply. A maximum Power Added Efficiency (PAE) of 43% is achieved.

The paper presents a fast bit-error-rate (BER) test suitable for digital receivers or transceivers. The test technique makes use of an elevated BER which can be achieved by geometrical translation of the signal constellation points on the IQ plane. As the elevated BER requires much less bits (or symbols) to be measured, significant savings in the test time can be anticipated. Also a maximum sensitivity to impairments in the noise factor is obtained in this way. To develop an effective elevated-BER test for a device in mass production a careful characterization procedure must be carried out, followed by a fine tuning procedure aimed at improving the test resolution and thereby the test coverage. The technique is supported by a simple statistical model and illustrated by a simulation example of a 4QAM receiver.

A 2.5 GS/s flash ADC, fabricated in 90nm CMOS,avoids traditional power, speed and accuracy trade-offs by usingcomparator redundancy with power-gating capabilities.Redundancy removes the need to control comparator offsets,allowing the large process-variation induced mismatch of smalldevices in nanometer technologies. This enables the use of smallsized,ultra-low-power comparators. Measurement results showthat the ADC dissipates 30 mW at 1.2 V. With 63 gate-ablecomparators, the ADC achieves 4.0 effective number of bits.

This paper presents the design of two low- voltage differential class-E power amplifiers (PA) for DECT and Bluetooth fabricated in 130 nm CMOS. In order to minimize the on-chip losses and to achieve a high efficiency at low supply voltages, the PAs do not use on-chip output matching networks. At 1.5V supply voltage, the DECT PA delivers +26.4 dBm of output power with a drain efficiency (DE) and power-added efficiency (PAE) of 41% and 30%, respectively. The Bluetooth PA delivers +22.7 dBm at IV with a DE and PAE of 48% and 36%, respectively. A continuous long-term test of 100 hours proves the reliability of the design.

As today's avionic systems highly rely on electronic components, the prognostic of electronic systems in the context of avionics has become crucial. This paper presents a prognostic method applicable to electronic components and systems based on the analysis of the power supply current. In this method, the focus is on trends in the measured power supply current of the device under prognostic process. The discussion in this paper reveals that there is a measurable relationship between the supply current and the remaining lifetime of the electronic devices. The presented methodology is supported by circuit simulations performed on a system consisting of reference circuitry. The prognostic method shows great promise due to the ability of being applicable at any prognostic level.

This paper investigates the feasibility of pulse width modulation technique (PWM) for dynamic test of ADCs used for high speed applications. The requirements and limitations of digital PWM signal to noise ratio (SNR) are discussed in terms of pulse-width resolution corresponding to the choice of the carrier- and clock frequency of a pulse-width generator. The PWM SNR response is measured by FFT using coherent sampling for different PWM resolution. Low-pas filtering removing high frequency PWM components is introduced as well to improve PWM SNR and prevent intermodulation effects, which tend to hamper the harmonic distortion test (HD). As an example a 4-bit first-order SigmaDelta ADC under dynamic test is simulated and the requirements for PWM resolution with respect to SNR and HD measurements are identified.

For PC DRAM buses, the number of slots per channel has decreased as data rates have increased. This limits the maximum memory capacity per channel. Signal equalization can be used to increase bit-rates for channels with a large number of slots and offer a cost effective method to solve the memory capacity problem. This paper presents a blind adaptive decision feedback equalizer (DFE) that enables high data-rates with a large number of slots per channel. Measurements at 2.6 Gb/s over a four-drop bus are presented.  

This paper describes the design and evaluation of a power amplifier (PA) for WLAN 802.11n in 65nm CMOS technology. The PA utilizes 3.3V thick-gate oxide (5.2nm) transistors and a two-stage differential configuration with two integrated inductors for input and interstage matching. For a 72.2Mbit/s, 64-QAM 802.11n OFDM signal at an average and peak output power of 9.4dBm and 17.4dBm, respectively, the measured EVM is 3.8%. The PA meets the spectral mask up to an average output power of 14dBm.

This paper describes the design of a power amplifier (PA) for WLAN 802.11n fabricated in 65 nm CMOS technology. The PA utilizes 3.3 V thick-gate oxide (5.2 nm) transistors and a two-stage differential configuration with two integrated transformers for input and interstage matching. For a 72.2 Mbit/s, 64-QAM, 802.11n OFDM signal at an average and peak output power of 11.6 dBm and 19.6 dBm, respectively, the measured EVM is 3.8%. The PA meets the spectral mask up to an average output power of 17 dBm.

This paper presents design considerations for low power, highly linear currentmode LNAs that can be used for wideband RF front-ends for multistandardapplications. The circuit level simulations of the proposed architecture indicatethat with optimal biasing a high value of IIP3 can be obtained. A comparison ofthree scenarios for optimal bias is presented. Simulation results indicate thatwith the proposed architecture, LNAs may achieve a maximum NF of 3.6 dBwith a 3 dB bandwidth larger than 10 GHz and a best case IIP3 of +17.6 dBmwith 6.3 mW power consumption. The LNAs have a broadband input match of 50Ω. The process is 90nm CMOS and with 1.1V supply the LNAs powerconsumption varies between 6.3 mW and 2.3 mW for the best and the worst caseIIP3, respectively.

This paper present the idea of single-ended adaptive equalization. The idea enables mitigation of inter-symbol interference in communication systems where it is desirable to utilize signal processing resources on only one side of a communication channel. Utilizing the reciprocity principle we show that this idea is suitable for both point-to-point and point-to-multi-point links. Possible implementation principles for multi-Gb/s communication are described and different implementation considerations are presented.

The paper presents a new technique of symbol error rate test (SER) for RF transceivers. A simple DSP algorithm implemented at the receiver baseband is introduced in terms of constellation correction, which is usually used to compensate for IQ imbalance. The test is oriented at detection of impairments in gain and noise figure in a transceiver frontend. The proposed approach is shown to enhance the sensitivity of a traditional SER test to the limits of its counterpart, the error vector magnitude (EVM) test. Its advantage over EVM is in simple implementation, lower DSP overhead and the ability of achieving a larger dynamic range of the test response. Also the test time is saved compared to a traditional SER test. The technique is validated by a simulation model of a Wi-Fi transceiver implemented in Matlab^TM.

The major design challenges toward a highly power- efficient bufferless resonant clock distribution network is discussed. The presented discussion is supported by measurements on three different clock distribution networks implemented in a test chip fabricated in 0.13-mum standard CMOS process. In addition to presenting a detailed power comparison between these networks and the conventional buffer-driven scheme, the clock jitter characteristic in bufferless clock distribution is discussed. Furthermore, injection-locking phenomenon is utilized to suppress data- dependent jitter and to achieve a low-jitter clock distribution.

This paper describes the use of programmable microwave function array (PROMFA) for different microwave application. The PROMFA concept is based on an array of generic cells, in which a number of different functions can be realized. Each PROMFA cell is a four-port circuit, that can either be programmed independently or collectively according to a specific need. Specifically, the phase shift capability in a single PROMFA cell, useful for a new type of phase shifter design is discussed. The paper also presents the functionality of this new architecture as a beamforming network. As an example case an active corporate feed network and a tunable recursive filter is demonstrated. Simulated and measured results are presented.

In this paper we present a framework for RF testing of a radio front-end using CMOS RF/DC voltage detectors connected between RF nodes and a DC test bus. The detector is designed and implemented in 0.13mum CMOS process and it achieves high input impedance, low power, small area and wide dynamic range. Measurement results show that internal RF nodes can be accessed without significantly degrading the chip performance. A verification procedure using an extra DC bus is proposed to verify that due to process variations all detectors are within an acceptable performance limit.

This paper presents a mixed signal decision feedback equalizer (DFE) efficiently implementing sign-sign least-mean-square (SS-LMS) coefficient updating, offset estimation and compensation. The equalizer is designed for multi-drop buses and has 16 six bit fully programmable filter coefficients. The equalizer filter is implemented with a novel carry-save-DAC architecture eliminating the carry propagation limiting factor. Measurement results from a test chip are presented showing no transmission errors and good clock skew robustness when receiving data at 700 Mb/s over a heavily polluted channel. The test chip also includes bit error rate (BER) measurement circuits and equalized eye-chart extraction

In this paper we present a framework for RF testing of a radio front-end using CMOS RF/DC voltage detectors connected between RF nodes and a DC test bus. The detector is designed and implemented in 0.13mum CMOS process and it achieves high input impedance, low power, small area and wide dynamic range. Measurement results show that internal RF nodes can be accessed without significantly degrading the chip performance. A verification procedure using an extra DC bus is proposed to verify that due to process variations all detectors are within an acceptable performance limit.

This paper presents a low-power small-area DLL-based frequency multiplier. Instead of using edge combiner-based clock synthesis scheme, the proposed frequency multiplier utilizes a ring oscillator, which is controlled by a DLL. An injection-locked slave ring oscillator is used for jitter suppression. The implementation of the proposed structure in 130-nm CMOS occupies an area of 0.02 mm2. It operates in the frequency range of 100 MHz to 1.5 GHz while consuming 24-mW power from a 1.2-V supply at 1.5 GHz. The measured output phase noise at 1.5 GHz is ¿100.1 dBc/Hz at a 4-MHz frequency offset.

This paper presents a detailed clock jitter characteristic analysis of a fully integrated 1.5-GHz resonant clocking fabricated in 130-nm CMOS, with 57% total clock power saving, compared to the conventional clocking implemented in the same test-chip. The jitter measurement result is in good agreement with the jitter analysis. Furthermore, a jitter-suppression technique based on injection locking phenomenon has been utilized to reduce the clock jitter and to solve the jitter peaking problem. Measurements show about 50% peak-to-peak clock jitter reduction from 28.4 ps to 14.5 ps after the activation of the injection locking.

Modern system-on-chip designs often require multiple clock frequencies. On the other hand, global interconnects suffer large delays. This paper proposes a method that manages these two problems within the framework of conventional synchronous design flow. The design is partitioned into isochronous blocks already at behavioral level, where each block is synchronous using a local clock. The local clock frequencies are assumed related by rational numbers. Communication between blocks is managed with FIFOs at each receiver, which manage different clock frequencies and hide unknown delays or clock skews. This method guarantees clock true implementation of a clock true behavioral description utilizing a predefined block-to-block latency.

An active recursive filter approach is proposed for the implementation of an inductorless, tunable LNA in CMOS. A test circuit was designed and manufactured in a 0.18 μm CMOS technology. The feasibility of this type of LNA was demonstrated in both simulations and measurements and reasonably good performance was obtained. The measurements show a center frequency tuning range from 0.75-3 GHz and a minimum noise figure of 4.8 dB. Gain and Q value are also tunable in a wide range. Measured IIP-3 and 1-dB compression point is -24 dBm and -29.5 dBm respectively, measured at the center frequency 1.7 GHz and with 21 dB gain.

This paper can be viewed as a supplement to recent

interest in different on-chip resonant clocking

techniques. We present a study on the impact of

sinusoidal clock signals on power and performance of

six conventional flip-flops. The dominating effects are

delay penalties of 20-30 % for the best flip-flops, and

reduced race-margins. Two-phase master-slave flip-flops

and single-phase sense-amplifier flip-flops both obtain

robust timing behavior, and minimum power-delay

degradation.

We investigate how crosstalk affects latency, data-rate, and power dissipation for on-chip global interconnects in a 6-layer 0.18μm CMOS process. A simplified analytical interconnect description is compared to circuit simulations of a field solver extracted wire model. We show how repeater insertion can be utilized to achieve wave pipelining, which pushes maximum data-rate beyond the classical limit. Compared to simulations, the analytical model is pessimistic by 10% for latency, 30% for maximum data-rate, and 35% for power dissipation, highlighting the importance of avoiding too simple wire representations.