RF Chip Research Articles

50 GHz Four-Port Coupling-Reduced Probe Card Utilizing Pogo Pins Housed in Custom Metallic Socket.

A design for a pogo-pin probe card featuring a metallic socket is proposed to eliminate signal leakage and coupling loss in a multi-port environment. The proposed metallic pogo-pin socket includes a metal wall structure between adjacent pogo pins, ensuring complete isolation. This metal wall offers an advantage in removing coupling issues between pogo pins that can occur with typical dielectric pogo-pin sockets. The designed probe card is fabricated as a prototype and verified for its performance. Measurement results using a test through line show that coupled power is minimized, providing a low-loss transmission performance of -2.14 dB to an RF chip at 50 GHz, all within a compact size. Although the dielectric spacer used to secure the pogo pins allows for some leakage, it can maintain a low coupling performance of under -15 dB in the millimeter-wave band. The prototype probe card can deliver an RF signal to a 5G circuit with a low loss of -0.7 dB at 28 GHz and -1.9 dB at 39 GHz frequency. The designed probe card is capable of transmitting multiple RF signals to the RF system without signal distortion in a multi-port environment.

Advanced Packaging Trends in the Semiconductor Industry

Advanced packaging is an important technology that is now taking over from advanced processes to help the semiconductor industry continue to grow. The researcher found that the personnel in contact with the semiconductor industry chain have already had a preliminary understanding of advanced packaging, however, the future development trend of the advanced packaging industry still lacks a comprehensive knowledge. Therefore, the research topic of this paper is the development trend of advanced packaging industry. The research methodology of this paper is as follows: firstly, to understand the concept and development trend of advanced packaging, secondly, to list the factors driving the development of advanced packaging, and finally, to understand the development direction of international enterprises in advanced packaging. This paper finds that after the chip process technology has entered the "post-Moore era", advanced packaging has been widely used in the fields of high-end logic chips, memories, RF chips, image processing chips, touch chips and so on. Advanced packaging technology tends to be diversified in function, stacking and connection. According to Yole, a market research organization, the global share of advanced packaging in the IC packaging and testing market will continue to increase. At the same time, Yole predicts that the global compound annual growth rate of traditional packaging will be only 1.9% from 2019 to 2025, which is much lower than the growth rate of advanced packaging. Advanced packaging is the key path to improve system performance in the post-Moore era.

Characterization of Embedded and Thinned RF Chips

This work studies the effect of thinning down chips with transmission line structures for flexible embedding technology. Test chips with 90 Ω grounded coplanar waveguide (GCPW) transmission lines have been designed and manufactured to characterize the high-frequency performance before and after embedding in sheet molding compound (SMC), and thinning down from 300 μm to 20 μm. Molding first technology enables single-die or multiple-die thinning with the embedding material while being held in the exact position, where the subsequent fanout copper (Cu) redistribution layer (RDL) structuring realizes the direct contacts to the embedded chip, followed by semiadditive manufacturing of traces. The embedded and thinned chips are characterized by S-parameter measurements in the frequency range from 20 MHz to 65 GHz using a vector network analyzer (VNA). The results show the feasibility of the examined embedding and thinning processes which are suitable for millimeter wave (mmWave) components as shown by the example of a G-CPW transmission line without degrading its RF performance in terms of characteristic impedance and attenuation.

Die shear analyze of electrically conductive adhesives in GaN wafer application

Because of the demand for high-speed and broadband networks, 5G technology has paid much attention. On the one hand, due to the transit frequency of 5G, which is 450 MHz ~ 6GHz and 24 GHz ~ 52 GHz, the RF component has to deal with a higher frequency than previous communication. On the other hand, a massive high-power channel is required for some applications, like wireless communication base stations, military applications, satellite communication, and TV broadcasting. Therefore, GaN has become a good choice for high-power and high-frequency RF applications. In GaN RF chips, electrically conductive adhesive (ECA) is a key component that restricts heat, electrical conductivity, and reliability. This research studied two ECAs in the die attach process of a 5G base station RF amplifier chip, ABP 8068TA from LOCTITE Corporation and ASP 295-09P9 from Heraeus Group. During the research, ASP 295-09P9 has different die shear performance for GaN and GaAs die. After troubleshooting, operation error, such as the uneven spread of ECA and height of ECA, is excluded. By testing the wafer back surface, it is found that both GaN die and GaAs die back are pure Au, but GaAs die back's roughness is 0.049um, which is rougher than GaN's (0.032um). It is reasonable to assume that a smoother surface is a disadvantage for the necking mechanism.

Application of single photon counter module in weak signal detection for RF chip scanning using a quantum near field probe

AbstractDiamond based quantum sensing for on‐chip electromagnetic field imaging is an emerging field. While smaller diamond probes offer higher spatial resolution, their lower fluorescence intensity poses a challenge for the traditional Avalanche Photo Diode. In this work, we propose a tapered fiber diamond probe containing Nitrogen‐vacancy center and utilize a single photon counter module as the detector. A time domain differential pulse sequence is introduced to suppress noise caused by laser intensity fluctuation. By analyzing the relationship between the signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) and parameters of differential pulse sequence, we derived the formula of SNR and the basic cycle (), and obtained the optimal SNR in the same measurement time through trade‐off between two different kinds of noise. The technique was applied to a waveguide microstrip filter chip, accurately imaging the current density distribution. Our results have potential applications in on‐chip testing and failure analysis.

China Chipmaking Industry’s Countermeasures Toward U.S. Sanctions and the Most Recent Achievements

The Sino-US technology war has greatly impacted China’s technological sector, including the semiconductor industry, which is instrumental in the production of technological products that are crucial in commercial and military technology. Previous research has failed to explore the specific development situation and development prospects of the leading emerging technology companies in China. Hence, this research aimed at addressing the identified gap in the literature on the Sino-US technology war, using a case study approach that focused on three main companies in China’s RF chip industry: Maxscend, Vanchip, and Microgate. Generally, the results reveal that although China’s domestic RF chip industry has grown rapidly in preparation for self-sufficiency, local companies in the industry are still facing several obstacles that are hindering self-sufficiency, mainly competition from the US, Japan, and other developed RF chip industries. Consistent with previous research, this case study urges the Chinese government to continue providing subsidies to its semiconductor industry and ensure that local technology companies have adequate funding for their development projects. Additionally, this case study proposes that the Chinese government should collaborate with local technology companies to increase human capital, since inadequate human capital is identified as a key barrier in China’s progress toward achieving self-sufficiency. Furthermore, China should make improvements in explicit knowledge transfers, as advancements in aspects such as intellectual property theft will assist local companies in keeping pace with the competition in the global semiconductor industry.

Design architecture and algorithm of wireless network integrated circuit based on 5G+AI

In the current integrated circuit (IC) design process, research on its design process is relatively backward. This paper mainly adopts 5G + artificial intelligence technology, and conducts an in-depth discussion on the structure and algorithm of wireless network integrated circuits. The article analyzes the development of IC industry and the application of EDA software, and puts forward some problems that China’s IC industry is currently facing. The article discusses the realization of IC design flow, which is realized from five aspects: design input, function simulation, layout realization, physical verification, and post-parasitic simulation. Then, in view of the problems existing in the current IC design process, specific solutions for improvement and strengthening are given. Four parts are designed in detail, namely multi-mode simulation, realization of fully automated layout, feature extraction and modeling, IR Drop and EM analysis. Combined with the widely used characteristics of IP design reuse technology, this paper conducts a targeted research on the process of IP design reuse. From the IP circuit transplantation and IP layout transplantation, the specific discussion is carried out. From the perspective of IP design reuse, the design process of the wireless network integrated circuit is further improved. This paper turns to the design of RF IC from the perspective of IC design process, giving the flow chart of RF chip. The test results showed that over the full temperature range, the total current was about 2.45 mA, which met the design requirements. When the load resistance is 4KΩ, the ascending propagation delay is 92tns and the descending propagation delay is 65tns, both of which increase significantly. The article can provide further reference for the design of wireless network integrated circuits.

Design of Athlete’s Running Information Capture System in Space-Time Domain Based on Virtual Reality

In order to improve the training effect of athletes, aiming at the problems of inaccurate information capture results, poor real-time performance of sports information capture, and inability to effectively suppress noise interference in traditional methods, an athlete space-time running information capture system based on virtual reality is designed. Establish the athlete’s human skeleton, obtain the athlete’s sports joint points, design the overall architecture of the athlete’s space-time running information capture system, and realize the whole link design of sports information capture through RF chip, infrared camera, sports data acquisition module, data transmission module, and human-computer interaction module. Based on virtual reality technology, a virtual reality environment is built to obtain the characteristic parameters of athletes’ sports posture in space-time domain, and the median filtering algorithm is used to filter the original signal to eliminate the impact of noise signal on athletes’ sports information capture. Finally, the activity of the motion region is detected, and the motion information is captured combined with the Gaussian mixture model. The experimental results show that the system designed in this paper has high accuracy and anti-interference and can realize the real-time capture of motion information.

A Differentially Fed Antenna With Complex Impedance for Ingestible Wireless Capsules

A differentially fed capsule antenna with a complex input impedance is proposed in this letter. The antenna maintains a circular flat shape with a diameter of 10 mm and operates at the desired band of the RF chip (2.4–2.525 GHz). With the utilization of an inductively coupled fed structure and dual meandered radiators, a –10 dB impedance bandwidth of 10.2% is achieved. In the meantime, the high impedance tunability can be realized by adjusting corresponding structural parameters. The operating mechanisms and parametric studies are explored in detail to investigate the characteristic of the proposed structure. The capsule antenna prototype is fabricated, assembled, and measured according to the practical scenario. The measured results highly agree with the simulation ones, which indicate that the proposed antenna could be a good candidate for wireless capsule endoscopy applications.

Novel Beam Scan Method of Fabry–Perot Cavity (FPC) Antennas

A new beam scanning method of a Fabry–Perot cavity (FPC) antenna is proposed. To obtain high gain in a target direction with a reduced sidelobe level (SLL), we devised a tapered partially reflective surface (PRS) as a superstrate. Moreover, to attain various beam scanning directions, a phase-controllable artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) ground plane with a broad reflection phase range and high reflection magnitudes was introduced. In the proposed method, a new formula to satisfy an FP resonance condition in a cavity for a scanned beam is also suggested. According to the formula, the FPC antenna can precisely scan the main beam in designed target directions with well-maintained high gain, which has been hardly achievable. In addition, our method demonstrates the potential of electrical beam-scanning antennas by employing active RF chips on the AMC cells. To validate the method, we fabricated a prototype FPC antenna for a scanned beam at θ = 30°. Furthermore, we conducted an additional simulation for a different beam scanning angle as well. Good agreement between the expected and experimental results verifies our design approach.

High gain and low noise wideband folded-switching mixer employing transformer and complimentary CS/CG hybrid topology

In this paper, a high gain and low noise wideband folded-switching down conversion mixer has been designed. A differential complimentary common source/common gate (CS/CG) hybrid topology is utilized as the input RF transconductor stage, where a transformer is subtly applied to the source nodes of the complimentary CS/CG transistors. With the transformer and complimentary CS/CG hybrid topology as the input RF transconductor for both RF signal amplification and chip area reduction, the conversion gain, noise figure, input impedance matching, and chip area-efficiency of the mixer can be signficantly improved. Under a 0.8 ​V supply voltage and 1 ​dBm LO power, the mixer exhibits a conversion gain of 12.2–17.9 ​dB and a double-sideband noise figure of 2.6–6.1 ​dB between RF frequencies from 3.0 to 7.0 ​GHz. The IIP3 is −6.5 ​dBm at the RF frequency of 5.0 ​GHz while consuming only 2.72 ​mW of power at an IF frequency of 100 ​MHz. The chip area is only 0.55 ​mm ​× ​0.65 ​mm.

High-Resolution and Large-Detection-Range Virtual Antenna Array for Automotive Radar Applications.

Collision avoidance and autonomous control of vehicles have become essential needs for providing a high-quality and safe life. This paper introduces a new generic scheme for a virtual antenna array (VAA) and its application in a train collision-avoidance system (TCAS). The proposed TCAS shall have the capability of identifying the range and angle of an object in front of a moving train and provide the required alerts. Thereby, a new virtual array distribution for both the transmitting and the receiving antenna arrays is introduced to get a long-range object detection and high-resolution multi-input multi-output (MIMO) system. This can be accomplished because the VAA radiation pattern is the multiplication of the radiation patterns for both the transmitting and receiving antenna arrays, which is different than each one of them alone. In this work, the VAA is utilized in radar systems in which the radar range depends on the multiplication of the gain of the transmitting and receiving antennas. So, we introduce a new scheme for the general design of VAA-based radars. A prototype for the antenna system was fixed on a of Texas Instruments platform for the cascading radar. One of the main problems of the VAA is the loss of radiated power in undesired directions, which affects the maximum detection range in beamforming systems and degrades the diversity gain in MIMO applications. These issues have been solved by the introduction of the practical implementation of a proposed high-gain, low side lobe level VAA system for automotive radar that is based on the integration of four AWR1243 RF chips operating in a frequency range of 76 GHz to 81 GHz. It was implemented using low-power 45 nm (TI) RFCMOS technology. The measured gain of the realized VAA was 47.2 dBi, which was 1.815 times higher than that of the Texas instrumentation linear frequency modulated continuous wave (TI’ LFMCW) radar, which was 26 dBi. The proposed VAA saved 45% of the required implementation area compared to the TI’ LFMCW antenna array. The VAA system was fabricated and tested in an anechoic chamber, and it was found that the simulated and measured patterns of the proposed VAA were highly matched in terms of half-power beamwidth and side lobe level.

Review on Security Issues and Challenges in Wireless Sensor Networks

As wireless sensor technology advances, it is utilized for a broad variety of applications across several associations. Another standard in the person wireless region after Bluetooth is the ZigBee technology. After a prologue to this technology, another ZigBee protocol-dependent wireless meter-perusing framework has progressed. This system, which includes the organization of ZigBee and the framework of the executive database, has various essential preferences, such as limited commitment, low use of force, and low data rate. ZigBee technology-dependent Wireless Sensor Organization is a wireless organization made up of various hubs of ZigBee RF chip, sensor, and MCU, especially suitable for the incombustible remote control system. It is also possible to conceive a blend of RFID and Zigbee, which ends up being for wireless sensor network technology.

5G Transceiver Component Cell-packing Fabrication for Wireless Data Transmission Using LTCC Technology

As an attractive electronic component fabrication method, LTCC technology has been widely used for the creation of highly integrated components in advanced manufacturing field. In this paper, a fabrication method of 5G transceiver component cell-packing was presented using LTCC technology. RF and capacitor chips were also bonded to the cell-packing for electrical performance test. The experimental results showed that the actual dimensions of cell-packing had little differences from the design dimensions, and the cell-packing coating had good solderability. Through electrical performance test, the core electrical performance indicators of 5G transceiver component, such as signal gain and output power, were reasonable over the whole operating frequency band. It indicated that the cell-packing can be applied to 5G transceiver component in satellite communications for wireless data transmission.

Retracted] Physiological Index Monitoring of Wearable Sports Training Based on a Wireless Sensor Network

According to the development needs of wireless sensor networks, this paper uses the combination of embedded system and wireless sensor network technology to design a network node platform. This platform is equipped with a sports training sensor module to measure the physiological indicators of the ward in real time. The network node sends the collected physiological parameters to a remote monitoring center in real time. First, according to the generation mechanism of the physiological index signal and the characteristics of the physiological index signal, the wireless sensor network analysis and processing method are used to denoise the physiological index signal, and the wireless sensor network package is used to extract the characteristics of the physiological index, indicating different types of respiration. The energy characteristics of the sound physiological index signals are different, which verifies the feasibility of the independent component analysis method for separating the physiological index and the physiological index signal of the heart sound. Secondly, the hardware system of physiological index signal acquisition is designed, and the selection principle of the hardware unit is introduced. At the same time, the system structure of the monitor is designed, and then, the wireless sensor network sensor node is researched, the hardware of the wearable monitor system is designed, and the hardware architecture and working mode based on the single‐chip MSP430F149 are given. Finally, the wireless hardware platform includes the following main modules: sensor part, preprocessing circuit module, microprocessing module based on MSP430 low power consumption, wireless transceiver module based on RF chip CC2420, and power supply unit used to provide energy.

A Simulation Methodology for Wirebonds Interconnects of Radiofrequency Integrated Circuits

This work presents a methodology for the simulation of bonding wires under the circumstance when signals with RF frequencies are employed and thus, the impedances of the parasitic resistances, capacitances and inductances of these interconnections are no longer negligible. A s-parameters extraction strategy for each of the wirebonds will be shown with the help of Agilent’s EM simulator ADS resulting in a netlist in spectre which will be used in the test-bench of the designed IC to emulate the behavior of the bondwires and thus making possible a proper dimensioning and tuning of the RF chip to ensure a better performance of the encapsulated RF IC. Finally the design example of a power amplifier is proposed and some aspects of the interaction of this block with the wirebonds are studied.

Artificial Neural Networks and Wireless Network Technology: A Review of Literature

The research paper is an introduction to the artificial neural networks and wireless network by using sensor technology. There are myriads types of neural networks which are used in computer network and wireless network technology. Neural networks explain and give the proper demonstration for the applications of neural networks and wireless network. The artificial network and wireless network have strong connection and can be investigated and explained properly. There are also some models which are called mathematical models which can explain and demonstrate the artificial and wireless networks in detail. There are many organizations which are using artificial neural networks by using sensor technology for wide range of purpose. A new technology ZigBee introduced in artificial networks and wireless networks by evolving the new protocol system based on meter reading. Artificial neural networks and wireless network along database management system have great importance in revolutionizing the world in artificial and wireless technology by using different wireless sensors, RF chip, and fusion of RFID system along with nodes of ZigBee technology.

Noise reduction of spin torque oscillator by phase-locked loop with combinational frequency tuning method

The noise of a spin torque oscillator (STO) is 4–6 orders higher than that of a traditional CMOS Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO). This is the biggest obstacle hindering the STO to replace the VCO in pragmatic usage since a high quality RF signal is essential to the modern telecommunication system. The phase-locked loop (PLL) is widely used in RF chips, which can both stabilize VCO frequency and reduce its noise. There are very few experimental and theoretical works investigating the STO stabilized by the PLL, whereas the numerical investigation is totally missing. In this work, the STO stabilized by the PLL is numerically investigated. Based on the analysis, a combinational frequency tuning method is proposed, which is suitable for the PLL operation and can reduce the STO noise even further.

A Low-profile Ultra-wideband LTCC Based Microstrip Antenna for Millimeter-wave Applications under 100 GHz

In this paper, a low profile ultra-wideband microstrip antenna is proposed for millimeter wave applications below 100 GHz to meet the demands of high data rates in the future wireless communication systems. The proposed antenna consists of a non-uniform hexagon shape radiating element on the top of 13th layer of ceramic. The proposed antenna geometry is designed using Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramic (LTCC) technology for 3D multilayer vertical integration. HFSS and CST Studio are used for design and simulation of this ultra-wideband antenna. This antenna covers a bandwidth of 33.5 GHz that ranges from 62.5 GHz to more than 96 GHz with a peak gain of 5.7 dBi, stable radiation pattern across the bandwidth, and compact size of 3.16  3.2 mm 2. The limitation of the narrow band in microstrip antenna is successfully dispensed by increasing the matching impedance bandwidth to more than 40 %. The proposed microstrip antenna is very useful for modern wireless communication systems because of its capability of covering a very wide bandwidth with favorable impedance matching and a stable radiation pattern at the considered frequency range. This antenna has another advantage in terms of the ability to be directly integrated with other RF chips using LTCC multilayer technology.

Design and Implementation of Networked Control System Based on ARM and Zigbee

With the rapid development of computer network technology, Network Control System has gradually become a hot point in the control field. AT91RM9200 micro-processor, CC2530 RF chip, DC motor and optical encoders were used to build a miniature embedded networked control system. Then some embedded software developments and also control algorithm were designed to make sure that the system can control the motor through a wireless network. Finally, network transmission test and control experiment were conducted to observe the actual network traffic conditions. In the Motor non-load condition, the local control effect was compared to the networked control to get made a series of experimental data, and these data were analyzed and summarized.