Single-pole Double-throw Switch Research Articles

High isolation and high power of 0.13 µm CMOS SPDT switch using deep‐N‐well transistors and floating‐body technique in K‐band

AbstractA K‐band high isolation single‐pole double‐throw (SPDT) switch using a 0.13 µm CMOS process is presented. Two on‐state resistors of shunt Deep‐N‐Well (DNW) transistors are used to improve isolation. The floating‐body technique is utilized to enhance the power‐handling capability. The off‐state capacitors of two DNW transistors are employed to construct an impedance‐matching network. The switch achieves a measured insertion loss of 3.0–3.2 dB and an isolation of better than 35 dB from 17 to 27 GHz. A measured input 1 dB compression power (IP1dB) of 11.8 dBm is obtained at 24 GHz. The chip size of the proposed switch is 0.52 × 0.66 mm2with a core area of only 0.33 × 0.27 mm2.

A Dual-Component Electric Probe Embedded With a 0°/180° Hybrid Coupler for Near-Field Scanning

In this article, a Ka -band dual-component electric probe is proposed in low temperature co-fired ceramic for near-field scanning, which consists of a sensing part of two symmetric L-shaped strips and a 0°/180° hybrid coupler. The responses to the tangential and normal electric components are outputted to the difference and sum ports without post-processing, to avoid the errors due to phase measurements at high frequencies. A grounded coplanar waveguide (GCPW) is used as a standard kit. Equations are derived carefully to take the imperfect terminations into account. To further improve the sensitivity and measurement efficiency, a low noise amplifier (LNA) and an absorptive single pole double throw (SPDT) switch are integrated with the probe. Simulated and measured results indicate that the probe can characterize the near electric field distributions within the band of 27.2–30 GHz, and the sensitivity of the active probe prototype is improved by 17–18 dB at 28 GHz when compared with the passive one. The passive probe prototype is utilized to scan the near electric field of an integrated transmitting front-end module at 28.5 GHz.

Wideband-Filtering Switches With Ultra-Wide Stopband Using P-I-N Diodes Loaded on Slotline

This paper presents a new design method for the microwave switch, which uses p-i-n diodes loaded on slotline. A single-pole single-throw (SPST) switch based on the microstrip-slotline-microstrip (M-S-M) transition with non-uniform loading structures is first designed to validate our design approach, which controls the on and off states of the switch by applying different voltages to the diodes. Then a single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switch using p-i-n diodes loaded on slotline T-junction is proposed, which achieves great high-pass response of ON-state channel and 20 dB OFF-state suppression (OSS) within dc to 4.64 GHz. To overcome the poor selectivity of two switches, transmission zeros need to be introduced to achieve band-pass response. Therefore, the slotline of the M-S-M transition is loaded with gradient length short stubs to bring in multiple transmission zeros and achieve SPST/SPDT wideband-filtering switches with ultra-wide stopband. Finally, the proposed filtering switches are fabricated and measured. The measurement results show that the SPDT filtering switch not only provides the expected band-pass response and wide stopband from 4 to 43.5 GHz of ON-state channel, but also has 22.8 dB rejection of OFF-state channel, and the 20.8 dB port-to-port isolation from dc to 43.5 GHz.

High-Powered RF SOI Switch With Fast Switching Time for TDD Mobile Applications

This paper presents a fast switching and high-powered single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switch for RF switch circuits, such as TRx antenna switches and frequency band (or operation mode) selection switches in mobile handset applications. For fast switching time and performances of the RF switch, we proposed a novel method that can “selectively” control the impedance of a gate biasing circuit (“high” or “low” impedance). The proposed SPDT switch use the low impedance of the gate biasing circuit for fast switching time and use the high impedance of the gate biasing circuit to avoid the degradation of the insertion loss and harmonics. The proposed SPDT switch has no additional bias and no large payment for size consumption. According to measurement results, the turn-on switching time of the proposed SPDT switch was <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.35~\mu \text{s}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> (at 2 GHz). The insertion loss, isolation, and return loss at 2 GHz were 0.16 dB, 47.1 dB, and 24 dB respectively. 2nd and 3rd harmonic levels at 25 dBm input power at 2 GHz were −88.7 dBm and −78.9 dBm, respectively. Power handling capability was 39.5 dBm of input power at 2 GHz. The designed SPDT switch was implemented in a 0.13- <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> partially depleted silicon-on-insulator (PD-SOI) process.

An X-Band High-Accuracy GaAs Multifunction Chip With Amplitude and Phase Control

This paper presents a high-accuracy multifunction chip (MFC) with amplitude and phase control in X-band. The MFC is designed with a common leg structure and incorporates a 6-bit attenuator (ATT), a 6-bit phase shifter (PS), two gain compensation amplifiers (GCAs), three single pole double throw switches (SPDTs), and fourteen logic control circuits. The interstage matching networks (IMNs) are inserted to compensate for the insertion phase and attenuation changes from the design due to the mismatches occurring when cascading the separately designed PS and ATT blocks. The receive and transmit modes switching is achieved by using four SPDTs. In addition, the resistance feedback is used in GCAs to compensate for passive losses and provide gain to the MFC. The proposed MFC is fabricated in 0.15- <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> GaAs pseudomorphic high-electron-mobility transistor (pHEMT) process. In the range of 8–11 GHz, the measured maximum root-mean-square (RMS) amplitude error of the MFC is less than 0.28 dB, and the maximum RMS phase error is less than 3.3°. Moreover, the MFC is achieved with a size of 4.3 mm <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times2.85$ </tex-math></inline-formula> mm. Excellent performance and compact size make the MFC great potential in spaceborne phased array applications.

Design of a K-Band High-Linearity Asymmetric SPDT CMOS Switch Using a Stacked Transistor

This study presents a high-linearity K - band single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switch with asymmetric topology in a 65-nm CMOS process for 5G applications. To simultaneously obtain high power-handling capability and high isolation in the Tx and Rx modes, respectively, we propose an SPDT switch using asymmetric topology and the stacked-transistor technique. In both the Tx/Rx modes, the proposed SPDT switch operates with an insertion loss of less than 2.1 dB and isolation better than 22.5 dB in the frequency range 20–25 GHz. At 22 GHz, the measurement results of the input 1-dB compression point (IP1 dB) are 32.5 and 4.7 dBm in Tx and Rx modes, respectively. The chip core size of the proposed SPDT switch is 0.03 mm2.

A Millimeter-Wave GaN MMIC Front End Module with 5G NR Performance Verification

This paper proposes a millimeter-wave (mmWave) 5G front end module (FEM) based on multiple gallium nitride (GaN) monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) with 5G new radio (NR) performance verification. The proposed structure is configured by a wide band GaN single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switch MMIC, a GaN low-noise amplifier (LNA) MMIC, and a GaN power amplifier (PA) MMIC with the target operation band from 26.5 GHz to 29.5 GHz. The LNA and PA MMICs are designed with 150 nm GaN/SiC technology, and the SPDT MMIC is designed with 100 nm GaN/Si. The LNA MMIC shows the measured noise figure less than or equal to 2.52 dB within the operation band. The PA MMIC is based on a two-stage configuration and shows about 35 dBm measured saturated power with power-added efficiency better than 34% within the operation band. Also, the SPDT MMIC is based on an artificial transmission line configuration for wideband performance and shows that the measured insertion loss is less than 1.6 dB, and the measured isolation is higher than 25 dB within the operation band. Furthermore, all MMICs are integrated within a single carrier as an FEM and successfully verified by 5G NR test signals.

Surface H‐field mapping of a GaAs single pole double throw switch chip based on quantum diamond probe

With the improvement of design capability and manufacture technology, the integration as well as the complexity of chips have also increased dramatically, and it becomes critical to realize noninvasive electromagnetic inspection of chips at higher resolutions. In this paper, we propose a submicron-resolution microwave near-field imaging system based on the nitrogen-vacancy center (NV) in diamond, which mainly consists of an optical hardware system and a software control system, and can be used for nondestructive imaging of microwave fields on the surface of integrated circuits with submicron resolution. We applied this technique to scan the surface microwave field distribution of a GaAs single pole double throw switch chip. The scanning imaging system can image the near-field magnetic distribution for the chip, which provides a new solution for analyzing the current distribution on the chip surface and thus addressing problems such as excessive current or crosstalk. It is worth mentioning that the diamond NV color center-based sensor has a very high-spatial resolution and magnetic field detection sensitivity at room temperature, while the dielectric constant of natural diamond is 5.5, which also provides the possibility of diamond as a sensor in complex radiation environments and is an ideal detector material for near-field imaging of electromagnetic fields.

Switchable function GaN power amplifier/rectifier

This letter proposes a switchable function power amplifier/rectifier using a GaN transistor. A dc single-pole double-throw switch is used to switch between the working mode of the circuit from power amplifier (PA) to rectifier and vice-versa, which greatly reduces the complexity of the circuit. A feedback network with an impedance close to infinity and the input port of the PA always terminated to 50 Ω are utilized to achieve consistent impedance conditions in both PA mode and rectifier mode. Class-F−1 operation is employed to design the PA/rectifier module. For validation, a PA/rectifier operating at 2.4 GHz is designed and fabricated using a CGH40010F GaN transistor. Measurements show that the implemented module can realize efficiency of over 70% regardless of operating in PA mode or in rectifier mode. Meanwhile, the application of the GaN transistor greatly increases the power capacity of the RF-DC rectifier mode, which is promising in bi-directional wireless high-power application scenarios such as enhanced drone airborne capability. To the best of the authors knowledge, this is the first realization of a switchable PA/rectifier module based on a GaN transistor.

Advances in Ku-Band GaN Single Chip Front End for Space SARs: From System Specifications to Technology Selection

In this paper, a single-chip front-end (SCFE) operating in Ku-band (12–17 GHz) is presented. It is designed exploiting a GaN on SiC technology featured by 150 nm gate length provided by UMS foundry. This MMIC integrates high power and low noise amplification functions enabled by a single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switch, occupying a total area of 20 mm2. The transmitting chain (Tx) presents a 39 dBm output power, a power added efficiency (PAE) higher than 30% and a 22 dB power gain. The receive path (Rx) offers a low noise figure (NF) lower than 2.8 dB with 25 dB of linear gain. The Rx port output power leakage is limited on chip to be below 15 dBm even at high compression levels. Finally, a complete characterization of the SCFE in the Rx and Tx modes is presented, also showing the measurement of the recovery time in the presence of large-signal interferences.

A D‐band quadrature‐hybrids‐based 5‐bit vector‐modulated phase shifter with low RMS phase error

This letter presents a D-band 5-bit vector-modulated phase shifter based on quadrature hybrids for D-band phased arrays. The proposed vector-modulated phase shifter employs two stages of quadrature hybrid followed with a single-pole double-throw switch for I/Q phase splitting and vector-summing. To improve the isolation performance, traveling-wave single-pole double-throw switches together with transistor parallel inductors are adopted. A marchand balun followed with two variable gain amplifiers is placed between the two quadrature hybrids for I/Q amplitude weighting. A proof-of-concept vector-modulated phase shifter is designed and fabricated in 0.13 μm SiGe BiCMOS technology and occupies a core chip area of 0.45 mm2. Measurement results show that the RMS phase error is 1.6° at 149 GHz and the RMS gain error is below 2.8 dB over 146–156 GHz. The DC power consumption is 148 mW.

A W-Band SPDT Switch With 15-dBm P1dB in 55-nm Bulk CMOS

Power-handling capability of bulk CMOS-based single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switch operating in millimeter-wave (mm-wave) and subterahertz region is significantly limited by the reduced threshold voltage of deeply scaled transistors. A unique design technique based on impedance transformation network (ITN) is presented in this work, which improves 1-dB compression point, namely P1dB, without deteriorating other performance. To prove the presented solution is valid, a 70–100-GHz switch is designed and implemented in a 55-nm bulk CMOS technology. At 90 GHz, it achieves a measured P1dB of 15 dBm, an insertion loss (IL) of 3.5 dB, and an isolation (ISO) of 18 dB. The total area of the chip is only 0.14 mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> .

In Situ Microwave Sensors and Switching Circuit for Oil Slick Thickness Measurement

The measurement of oil slick thickness, although at an early stage, has immense applications in determining the extent and quantity of crude oil accidentally discharged in oceans. In this work, we present the design, development and measurement of sensors and switching circuit that were integrated to form a novel microwave oil spill sensor for the determination of oil slick thickness. We used four ultra-wideband polydimethylsiloxane encapsulated antenna-sensors in a cuboid configuration connected to a customised RF switching circuit comprising of two single pole double throw (SPDT) switches. Each of the SPDT switches were connected to two antennas and a port of the vector network analyser (VNA). We developed an android application on a smartphone to select each of the antenna-sensors for the oil slick thickness measurements. The four antenna-sensors operated in the radiating near-field regions. Crude oil has lower density compared to salted seawater, therefore, it floats on the surface. This enabled the four-sensor antenna array to establish the oil thickness using radio frequency. The simulated and measured transmission coefficients showed the capability of the oil slick measurement sensor and switching circuit to determine the oil slick thickness using a novel contact-based in situ microwave approach.

Design of an Absorptive High-Power PIN Diode Switch for an Ultra-Wideband Radar

This paper details the development of a low-loss, PIN diode single-pole double-throw (SPDT) absorptive switch for an ultra-wideband radar. The fabricated switch operates with a peak power of 200 watts at a 10% duty cycle. It has an insertion loss of less than 0.8 dB, a return loss greater than 19 dB, and isolates the transmitter and receiver beyond 37 dB over the frequency band (170 MHz-470 MHz) for sensitive radar measurements. An external RF limiter and a low-power CMOS switch at the receiving end are used to reduce video leakage from the PIN diode switch and enhance the isolation up to 80 dB. In addition, a fast-switching MOSFET-based PIN diode driver circuit is designed with a dead-time control circuit to minimize the cross-conduction currents for the PIN diode switch. The rise and fall times for the PIN diode switch are less than 200 ns. The switch-driver includes integrated low-noise power supplies that generate −50 V, 15 V, and 5 V from a common rail 50 V input source.

Cross-waveguide based on sunflower-type eightfold quasiperiodic magnetic photonic crystal

Nonreciprocal waveguides play a key role in optical communication devices due to their robustness in unidirectional transmission along the edge. We proposed a unidirectional air guide waveguide structure based on eightfold sunflower quasiperiodic magnetic photonic crystal (PC) that has a large working bandwidth, high transmission efficiency, and strong stability. A cross-waveguide is constructed in the sunflower-type eightfold quasiperiodic magnetic PC structure. It can be used as a single-pole double-throw switch by changing the external bias magnetic field direction, in which the isolation is over 28 dB in the microwave band from 4.21 to 4.5 GHz and insertion loss is close to 0.001 dB. It can also achieve 1 × 2 or 1 × 3 equal ratio beam splitting, with a total transmission rate of close to 100% and transmission loss of 0.001 dB. The cross-waveguide is simple in structure and easy to integrate and manufacture, and it has a wide range of functions that have tremendous potential applications in optical communication systems.

Single-Pole Double-Throw Filtering Switch and its Application in Pattern Reconfigurable Antenna

In this communication, a low-cost, single-pole double-throw (SPDT) filtering radio frequency (RF) switch based on coupled resonators is proposed and utilized in a novel pattern reconfigurable antenna design. The proposed filtering switch employs two second-order quarter-wavelength microstrip resonant structures which can be controlled by p-i-n diodes, respectively. Compared with traditional switches based on p-i-n diode, this filtering switch can not only improve the RF response but also suppress the high-order harmonic, when it is used with an antenna. Then, a low-profile dual-port broadside/conical dual-mode antenna is proposed by embedding a slotted substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) cavity in the middle of a patch antenna. The slotted cavity is to realize the radiation in the broadside whereas the patch is fed by two probes in-phase to realize the conical radiation. Finally, the filtering switch and the dual-mode antenna are combined to realize the pattern reconfigurable antenna. By controlling the states of the p-i-n diodes, broadside and conical radiation patterns can be easily switched. The concept of switch-based pattern reconfigurable antenna is prototyped and experimentally verified. Measured results agree with the simulations, demonstrating a promising solution for pattern reconfigurable antenna designs.

Design of a Compact Dual-Band Absorptive Single-Pole Double-Throw Switch

In this letter, a compact dual-band absorptive single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switch design is proposed. It utilizes the bridged-T coil as a miniaturized dual-band <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\lambda /4$ </tex-math></inline-formula> transformer such that the concurrent dual-band operation in the on-state and the desired absorptive property in the off-state can be both achieved. The proposed design concept is validated through a 2.45/5.8-GHz dual-band absorptive SPDT switch design implemented in a commercial GaAs pHEMT process. The measured on-state insertion loss is 1.54/1.97 dB and the off-state isolation is 35/29 dB at 2.45/5.8 GHz, while the measured return losses at all ports are better than 20 dB at 2.45/5.8 GHz. In addition, a compact chip size of 2.0 mm <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> 1.5 mm is achieved.

Highly Selective Bandpass Switch Block With Applications of MMIC SPDT Switch and Switched Filter Bank

A new bandpass single-pole single-throw (SPST) switch (BPSW) is proposed in this letter. The proposed BPSW configuration can be directly employed as a building block to construct the single-pole N-throw (SPNT) switch or the highly-selective switched filter bank with no need for the extra control circuit, thus effectively reducing the circuit size and lowering the loss. The operation mechanism of the BPSW is analyzed, and the filter-synthesis-based design method is given. For demonstration, 3-6 GHz and 4-8 GHz BPSW blocks are built using the commercial GaAs pHEMT process to construct the single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switch as well as the two-way integrated switched filter bank. The filter bank is implemented in 0.25 &#x03BC;m GaAs pHEMT process. Two passbands are measured at 2.7-5.79 GHz and 3.72-7.35 GHz with a minimum insertion loss of 2.7 dB, while the all-OFF state can be set with over 35 dB suppression. The measurement results are in good agreement with the simulation that verifies the concept.

SPDT discrete switch design using switchable SIW resonators for millimeter wave MIMO transceiver

A single pole double throw (SPDT) discrete switch design using switchable substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) resonators is proposed in this paper. It was designed for the millimeter wave multiple input multiple output (MIMO) transceiver. An example application is for 5G communication in 26 GHz band. High isolation between transmitter and receiver (in the transceiver) is needed in SPDT switch design to minimize any high radio frequency (RF) power leakage in the receiver. Therefore, the use of switchable SIW resonators can achieve higher isolation if compared to the conventional series SPDT switch, where the isolation of the proposed SPDT is depend on the bandstop response of the SIW resonators. The switchable SIW resonators can be switched between allpass and bandstop responses to allow the operation between transmit and receive modes. As a result, the simulation and measurement showed that the proposed SPDT switch produced an isolation higher than 25 dB from 24.25 to 27.5 GHz compared to the conventional design.

A 90-GHz Asymmetrical Single-Pole Double-Throw Switch With &gt;19.5-dBm 1-dB Compression Point in Transmission Mode Using 55-nm Bulk CMOS Technology

The millimeter-wave (mm-wave) single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switch designed in bulk CMOS technology has limited power-handling capability in terms of 1-dB compression point (P1dB) inherently. This is mainly due to the low threshold voltage of the switching transistors used for shunt-connected configuration. To solve this issue, an innovative approach is presented in this work, which utilizes a unique passive ring structure. It allows a relatively strong RF signal passing through the TX branch, while the switching transistors are turned on. Thus, the fundamental limitation for P1dB due to reduced threshold voltage is overcome. To prove the presented approach is feasible in practice, a 90-GHz asymmetrical SPDT switch is designed in a standard 55-nm bulk CMOS technology. The design has achieved an insertion loss of 3.2 dB and 3.6 dB in TX and RX mode, respectively. Moreover, more than 20 dB isolation is obtained in both modes. Because of using the proposed passive ring structure, a remarkable P1dB is achieved. No gain compression is observed at all, while a 19.5 dBm input power is injected into the TX branch of the designed SPDT switch. The die area of this design is only 0.26 mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> .