27/12/15 Assaf Azoulay

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By

Assaf Azoulay

M.Sc. student of Dr. Eran Socher

Electrical Engineering, Physical Electronics Department

Tel Aviv University

Devices for Multiband Communication in MM-Waves

Abstract

Since the introduction of the iPhone, the demand for high data rate has increased drastically. More and more applications require wide bandwidth to allow for many bytes of digital transmission in a short period. Moreover, the demand for multifunction devices is inevitable whereas in today's phone, one can find many - LTE, GPS, Bluetooth and many more. In parallel to these increasing demands, mmW applications have been developed - Satcom, Wigig, automotive Rardar and others. Much of the RF research is focused on improving the performance of  existing bands on one hand and exploring new bands, such as 100-300GHz on the other hand.

This thesis presents the design of key components that enable the use of multiple applications and high data rates on the same chip. We start by introducing a tri-band VCO which oscillates at 3 different bands 30, 60 and 90 GHz. This device can also be used as an FSK by modulating the control voltage. The following device is the wideband antenna. The antenna design should enable the wideband demand in terms of good Return Loss and radiation pattern stability. The difficulties encountered with integrating the antenna with the RF chip by using interconnecting bonding wires is addressed and a matching circuit solution is shown. The last device this thesis explores is a combiner that will combine all bands into a single radiating element while maintaining low loss and compact size.

The VCO was designed on a 65nm CMOS technology from TSMC. The simulation results showed reasonable power across the band, ranging from -4dBm at 30GHz to -13dBm at 60GHz and -30dBm at 90GHz. The power was simulated into a single ended, 50 ohm load. The designed antenna was realized on a Rogers 5880 Duroid laminate, and we measured a peak gain of +6dBi at 120GHz at end-fire direction. The results were in good agreement with the EM simulations performed on CST.

The combiner was designed as a Triplexer on CMOS chip with the same technology as the VCO and was simulated to have average loss of 3dB across each sub-band.

Sunday, 27 November 2015, at 14:00

Room 101, Wolfson Building of Computer and Software Engineering