RF Transceiver System Research Articles

Investigation of laser-induced single event effect on SiGe BiCMOS low noise amplifiers

With the further development of the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology and the silicon-germanium (SiGe) epitaxy technology, SiGe bipolar CMOS (BiCMOS) low noise amplifiers (LNAs) are widely used in the first level of radio frequency (RF) transceiver system in space. The core part of SiGe BiCMOS LNA is SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor (SiGe HBT) which naturally possesses excellent temperature characteristic and favorable build-in total ionizing dose and displacement damage resistance without any radiation hardening. However, the single event effect caused by the transient charge collection is the bottleneck problem, restricting its application in space. In this work, laser microbeam experiments were carried out on a SiGe BiCMOS LNA in which the sensitive region of single event effect was located. The experimental results indicate that the transient charge collection of SiGe HBT is the main reason of the single event effect of SiGe BiCMOS LNA. TCAD simulations show that the ionization track caused by ion incident in CMOS region will cross the deep trench isolation (DTI) structure, generate electron-hole pairs in SiGe HBT region and cause transient charge collection. The circuit simulations by ADS show that the peak value of the transient voltage will drop sharply when the SEE pulse transient voltage crosses the capacitor between the first stage and the second stage, which indicates that the capacitor plays an important role in transmitting the transient pulses caused by single event effect. The experimental and simulation results in this work provide technical support for radiation hardening by design (RHBD) of the single event effect of SiGe BiCMOS LNA.

Optimal design ofCMOSmixer: A research review

A mixer is an indispensable device in the RF transceiver system. Along with the rapid development of mobile communication technology, the demand on the RF mixer for compatibility with multiple communication standards and functional diversity is increasing. As a result, the mixer with wider bandwidth, lower noise, higher linearity, and less power consumption is urgently needed. In the article, the basic principle and the circuit architectures of the mixer are reviewed, including the essential performances such as linearity, noise, gain, bandwidth, and so forth. In addition, several aspects are presented, compared, and discussed with particular emphasis on optimization design approach and performance. Current design and fabrication challenges, future development, application areas of the mixer and visions for the mixer are also discussed in this review.

Improvement of nonlinear effects and increasing the power gain in traveling wave tube by changing the helix pitch and injection process

Abstract The increasing the usage of wireless telecommunication needs to designing and optimizing the power amplifiers as an integral part of RF transceiver systems. In a high efficiency power amplifier, increasing even some percent’s of efficiency leads to significant reduction in the consuming power, that means having access to higher powers using less parts and lower size and price. In the present paper, designing of one sample of these amplifiers is targeted. Using the LATTE software, the amplifier lamp which is the 8537H (Hughes) model is analyzed. The circuit sever which is modeled by a resistant loss in the central section of the circuit is considered in this research. The simulation is in bandage L between the frequencies from 1.6 to 2.2 GHz. The helix pitch is changed and power gain more than 61 dB in 1.9 GHz frequency is obtained. Also, Electron efficiency prior to optimization was 33%, and the electron efficiency after optimization got 70%. In this research to linearize the power frequency injection in base band method is used and its function on a power amplifier of traveling wave tube (TWT) with the central frequency of 1.9 GHz is studied.

Microwave front-end subsystems design for ITS/GPS applications

This paper reports the design, simulation and characterization of adaptable band pass filter, planar microstrip antenna and filtenna for GPS and ITS (intelligent transportation systems) applications. The designed microstrip slotted antenna has a 300MHz of measured bandwidth and 5.7dBi of measured gain, which is sufficient to cover the ITS band (5.85–5.925GHz). On the other hand, the developed filtenna operates in dedicated ITS band at 5.9GHz and have 1.5dBi of measured antenna gain. The reduction in filtenna gain is due to the additional insertion loss introduced by the hairpin bandpass filter incorporated in the feed of the proposed filtenna. Two adaptable bandpass filters have also been designed for GPS applications. First tunable filter operates at 1575MHz (GPS L1 frequency) while rejects 1227MHz frequency (GPS L2 frequency band). The (measured) return loss of the filter is better than 20dB from 1.5GHz to 1.6GHz; while insertion loss at 1575MHz is ∼5.5dB. Second tunable filter has been designed to cover both 1575MHz (L1 frequency band) as well as 1227MHz frequency ranges (L2 frequency band). The return loss (measured) of this filter is better than 10dB from 1.15GHz to 2.15GHz, and insertion loss is ∼5.5dB. The developed sub-systems can be used to build a low cost RF transceiver system for GPS and ITS applications.

로버스트 유무선 보안시스템을 위한 송수신 모듈의 설계

본 논문에서는 종래의 보안관리 시스템과 송수신 모듈의 단점을 개선하기 위해 유무선 복합기능의 송수신 모듈과 이를 사용한 신뢰성 높은 실시간 보안시스템을 제안한다. 제안하는 복합 송수신모듈은 RF 제어 회로와 무선 송수신 회로로 구성된다. RF제어회로는 저전력 협대역 RF 송수신 시스템으로서 마이크로프로세서의 레지스터에 저장되어 있는 특정 주파수 대역을 불러올 수 있고, 임의로 값을 쓰거나 읽어 들여 임의 주파수의 송신출력을 사용자가 제어할 수 있도록 설계한다. RF 송신 모듈의 동작을 위한 구동 알고리듬을 제시하고 설계한 복합 송수신 모듈과 동작 알고리듬을 시작품으로 구현하여 실험을 통해 유효성을 확인한다. In this paper, a design of transceiver module for real-time wire and wireless robust integrated security system to solve the problem of conventional security system and its transceiver module is proposed. The presented robust integrated security system is designed with RF control unit and wireless transceiver module. A RF controller in transceiver module works as a low-power RF transceiver system. It is designed to use specific bandwidth stored in registers and manipulate RF power of transceiver by accessing the random values of registers. Operation algorithm for RF transceiver module is also presented. The designed transceiver module and the operation algorithm are implemented and verified by experiments.

RF transceiver‐based wireless pressure monitoring system

ABSTRACTThis article reports the development and characterization of a robust RF transceiver system for wireless monitoring of the pressure variation in a gas pipeline installed in an industry. Proposed system consists of a monolithic silicon pressure sensor for converting applied pressure information to a DC voltage output, a varactor‐based voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) for converting DC voltages to RF signal, a power amplifier for amplifying the transmitting RF signal, and two wideband microstip fed filtering antennas used in transmitter and receiver modules. Transmitting antenna is used for radiating the selected RF signal (conditioned pressure information) while reflecting the undesired harmonics. Filtering antenna (Filtenna) at the receiver side is used to detect the desired RF signal while filtering out the undesired signal. Operating frequency band of proposed wireless pressure monitoring system is 2.2565–2.5804 GHz covering lower ISM band (2.4–2.5 GHz). As a proof of concept, experiment has been performed for monitoring of a pressure variation in the range 0–50 kPa and for a distance of 2 m between transmitting and receiving antennas. The measured pressure sensitivity of the proposed gas pressure monitoring system is 6.4786 MHz/kPa with a good linearity response. Calibration curve and curve fitting equations are provided for evaluating the pressure variation in a gas pipeline by detecting the received RF signal at the receiver end. Proposed system can be used for wirelessly monitoring the pressure of a gas pipeline installed in an industry. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 58:2237–2242, 2016

Real-Time Use-Aware Adaptive RF Transceiver Systems for Energy Efficiency Under BER Constraints

Modern radio front ends are required to operate over diverse channel conditions requiring the incorporation of significant performance overheads into their design. This results in significantly higher power consumption over most of the operational period since the worst case channels are not statistically prevalent. Adaptive systems solve this problem by adapting the performance and power consumption depending on channel conditions. In this paper, it is demonstrated that depending upon the throughput requirements of the system multiple low-power adaptation modes can be designed. These modes ensure either highest throughput operation or lowest energy-per-bit operation. The operation of these modes is demonstrated in simulation using multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) receiver and transmitter front ends. Subsequently, the concepts are demonstrated in hardware for both MIMO and single-input-single-output front ends.

Yield Recovery of RF Transceiver Systems Using Iterative Tuning-Driven Power Conscious Performance Optimization

This paper proposes a fast and low-cost method of calibrating RF transceiver systems using on-chip DSP resources and some additional circuit control points. Experimental results on a commercial power amplifier demonstrate significant increases in production yields using the proposed approach.

A Miniaturized CMOS MMIC Bandpass Filter with Stable Center Frequency for 2GHz Application

A miniaturized CMOS bandpass filter for a single RF transceiver system is presented, using diagonally end-shorted coupled lines and lumped capacitors. In contrast to conventional miniaturized coupled line filters, it is proven that the effective permittivity variation of the coupled transmission line has no effect on shifting the center frequency when the bandpass filter is highly miniaturized. A bandpass filter at a center frequency of 2 GHz was fabricated by CMOS technology. The insertion loss with the die area of is -5.14 dB. Simulated results are well agreed with the easurements. It also verify the center frequency stability in the compact size bandpass filter.

DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF VCO FOR STANDARD GSM USING MEMS

The design of a prototype monolithic Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) electronic circuits, namely the Voltage Controlled Oscillators (VCOs) is presented. The components can achieve the stringent requirements of wireless communication applications such as GSM cellular telephony. The VCO meets the low phase noise specifications of -136 dBc/Hz at large offset frequency of 3MHz, over the appropriate frequency range. The model of the monolithic VCO is based on the topology of the Colpitts Oscillator. It is relatively less complicated, which facilitates the practical integration of the MEMS components into the configuration. The variable capacitor and the monolithic 3-D coil inductor are suitable for low phase-noise and low power consumption at the application frequencies. A PSpice simulation model was developed with MEMS switching devices that can be integrated into the system. The model helps in determining the design parameters, which affect the performance and operation reliability of the RF transceiver system, for which a prototype has been tested and proved successful.

Passive and heterogeneous integration towards a Si-based System-in-Package concept

Recently Philips launched their first highly integrated cellular RF-transceiver systems using a new Si-based System-in-Package (SiP) technology. This technology utilizes back-end processing to integrate passive components onto a Si-substrate that serves as a platform for heterogeneous integration with active dies, MEMS dies, etc. As an example, a transceiver IC is flip-chip mounted onto this passive component substrate, thus minimizing interconnect parasitics and footprint area. Next, this sub-assembly is flipped back into a standard single IC-sized lead frame package. This paper reports on such Si-based SiP transceiver modules and the underlying technologies. Here, the passive die is made by the so-called PICS ( Passive Integration Connecting Substrate) technology that integrates passive components on one die, such as high-Q inductors, resistors, accurate MIM capacitors and, in particular, high-density (∼ 20–30 nF/mm 2) MOS ‘trench’ capacitors for decoupling. These MOS capacitors integrated in RF power amplifiers showed superior signal stability compared to discrete ceramic capacitors. Ultralow-loss factors were measured: series inductance ESL < 40 pH and resistance ESR < 150 mΩ, combined with superior dielectric breakdown voltage (30 V), low leakage (< 1 nA/mm 2 at 22 V) and long lifetime of 10 years at 100 °C and 10 V).