Low Power High Data Rate Millimeter Wave Transceiver For Wireless Network On Chip Applications

The Network-on-Chip (NoC) has been proposed as an enabling methodology to integrate many embedded cores on a single die. The existing method of implementing a NoC with planar metal interconnects is deficient due to high latency and significant power consumption arising from multi-hop links used in data exchanges. The millimeter (mm)-wave wireless NoC (WiNoC) is envisioned as a potential solution to these bottlenecks by replacing multi-hop wired paths with high-bandwidth, single-hop, long-range wireless links in mm-wave frequency. The WiNoC architecture necessitates a highly efficient wireless transceiver that can communicate at a data rate of tens of Gb/s.

The increasing demand for extremely high-data-rate communications has urged researchers to develop new communication systems. Currently, wireless transmission with more than one Giga-bits-per-second (Gbps) data rates is becoming essential due to increased connectivity between different portable and smart devices. To realize Gbps data rates, millimeter-wave (MMW) bands around 60 GHz is attractive due to the availability of large bandwidth of 9 GHz. Recent research work in the Gbps data rates around 60 GHz band has focused on short-range indoor applications, such as uncompressed video transfer, high-speed file transfer between electronic devices, and communication to and from kiosk. Many of these applications are limited to 10 m or less, because of the huge free space path loss and oxygen absorption for 60 GHz band MMW signal. This book introduces new knowledge and novel circuit techniques to design low-power MMW circuits and systems. It also focuses on unlocking the potential applications of the 60 GHz band for high-speed outdoor applications. The innovative design application significantly improves and enables high-data-rate low-cost communication links between two access points seamlessly. The 60 GHz transceiver system-on-chip provides an alternative solution to upgrade existing networks without introducing any building renovation or external network laying works.

This book discusses low power techniques for millimeter wave transmitter IC. Considerations for the front-end design are followed by several implementation examples in the 60GHz band in CMOS down to 28nm technology. Additionally, the design and implementation details of digitally-modulated millimeter wave polar transmitters are presented.

To meet the ever-increasing demands of computational power, multi-core processor integration has risen to new heights. The wireless network-on-chip is an emerging technology which seeks to augment inter-core interconnects on multi-core processors with high throughput, low power wireless interconnects. While this technology offers improvements in power and latency for on-chip communication networks, additional innovation is required to realize these system level benefits. To meet the speed, efficiency, and latency demands of the wireless network-on-chip architecture, highly efficient, wideband mmWave transceivers and sub-blocks must be designed.This thesis presents the design and analysis of mmWave transceiver sub-blocks as well as integrated transmitter and receiver systems. Two high-performance signal source circuits suitable for the requirements of the multi-band wireless network-on-chip architecture are presented. The first simultaneously provides multiple harmonically related outputs for non-overlapping frequency bands of a multi-band wireless network architecture. The signal source circuit consists of a 28 GHz voltage-controlled oscillator circuit which leverages transformer feedback for high output swing and low phase noise under a low voltage power supply and an efficient harmonic generation architecture. The second signal source leverages a phase-switched dual-mode inductor which presents different inductance under different phase excitation. In addition, a V-band receiver is presented which leverages a current re-use active feed-forward and feedback architecture for wide bandwidth demodulation and minimal power overhead. Additionally, the inductorless bandwidth extension technique reduces silicon area overhead. A W-band receiver is also proposed which leverages a dual-noise-matched active gain-boosted common-gate LNA architecture which provides wide input matching with reduced power overhead. Finally, a W-band transmitter based on a wideband direct-modulated on-off-keying oscillator is presented. Resonant pulse-generation is used to increase the initial energy across the resonant tank, dramatically reducing start-up time. Furthermore, dual active- and passive- Gm-boosting and adaptive amplitude control for reduced start-up time and decreased steady-state power consumption further improve the bandwidth of the direct modulation oscillator.The circuits described above were fabricated in a 65 nm CMOS technology and demonstrate state-of-the-art performance with low power consumption and low area overhead. The innovations in this work facilitate the low-power mmWave transceivers required for the multi-band WiNoC architecture.

This book compiles and presents the research results from the past five years in mm-wave Silicon circuits. This area has received a great deal of interest from the research community including several university and research groups. The book covers device modeling, circuit building blocks, phased array systems, and antennas and packaging. It focuses on the techniques that uniquely take advantage of the scale and integration offered by silicon based technologies.

The millimeter-wave frequency band (30–300 GHz) is considered a potential candidate to host very high data rate communications. First used for high capacity radio links and then for broadband indoor wireless networks, the interest in this frequency band has increased as it is proposed to accommodate future 5G mobile communication systems. The large bandwidth available will enable a number of new uses for 5G. In addition, due to the large propagation attenuation, this frequency band may provide some additional advantages regarding frequency reuse and communication security. However, a number of issues have to be addressed to make mm-wave communications viable. This book collects a number of contributions that present solutions to these challenges.

This book describes a full range of contemporary techniques for the design of transmitters and receivers for communications systems operating in the range from 1 through to 300 GHz. In this frequency range there is a wide range of technologies that need to be employed, with silicon ICs at the core but, compared with other electronics systems, a much greater use of more specialist devices and components for high performance – for example, high Q-factor/low loss and good power efficiency. Many text books do, of course, cover these topics but what makes this book timely is the rapid adoption of millimetre-waves (frequencies from 30 to 300 GHz) for a wide range of consumer applications such as wireless high definition TV, “5G” Gigabit mobile internet systems and automotive radars. It has taken many years to develop low-cost technologies for suitable transmitters and receivers, so previously these frequencies have been employed only in expensive military and space applications. The book will cover these modern technologies, with the follow topics covered; transmitters and receivers, lumped element filters, tranmission lines and S-parameters, RF MEMS, RFICs and MMICs, and many others. In addition, the book includes extensive line diagrams to illustrate circuit diagrams and block diagrams of systems, including diagrams and photographs showing how circuits are implemented practically. Furthermore, case studies are also included to explain the salient features of a range of important wireless communications systems. The book is accompanied with suitable design examples and exercises based on the Advanced Design System – the industry leading CAD tool for wireless design. More importantly, the authors have been working with Keysight Technologies on a learning & teaching initiative which is designed to promote access to industry-standard EDA tools such as ADS. Through its University Educational Support Program, Keysight offers students the opportunity to request a student license, backed up with extensive classroom materials and support resources. This culminates with students having the chance to demonstrate their RF/MW design and measurement expertise through the Keysight RF & Microwave Industry-Ready Student Certification Program. www.keysight.com/find/eesof-university www.keysight.com/find/eesof-student-certification

"To cater to the performance/watt needs, processors with multiple processing cores on the same chip have become the de-facto design choice. In such multicore systems, Network-on-Chip (NoC) serves as a communication infrastructure for data transfer among the cores on the chip. However, conventional metallic interconnect based NoCs are constrained by their long multi-hop latencies and high power consumption, limiting the performance gain in these systems. Among, different alternatives, due to the CMOS compatibility and energy-efficiency, low-latency wireless interconnect operating in the millimeter wave (mm-wave) band is nearer term solution to this multi-hop communication problem. This has led to the recent exploration of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) wireless technologies in wireless NoC architectures (WiNoC). To realize the mm-wave wireless interconnect in a WiNoC, a wireless interface (WI) equipped with on-chip antenna and transceiver circuit operating at 60GHz frequency range is integrated to the ports of some NoC switches. The WIs are also equipped with a medium access control (MAC) mechanism that ensures a collision free and energy-efficient communication among the WIs located at different parts on the chip. However, due to shrinking feature size and complex integration in CMOS technology, high-density chips like multicore systems are prone to manufacturing defects and dynamic faults during chip operation. Such failures can result in permanently broken wireless links or cause the MAC to malfunction in a WiNoC. Consequently, the energy-efficient communication through the wireless medium will be compromised. Furthermore, the energy efficiency in the wireless channel access is also dependent on the traffic pattern of the applications running on the multicore systems. Due to the bursty and self-similar nature of the NoC traffic patterns, the traffic demand of the WIs can vary both spatially and temporally. Ineffective management of such traffic variation of the WIs, limits the performance and energy benefits of the novel mm-wave interconnect technology. Hence, to utilize the full potential of the novel mm-wave interconnect technology in WiNoCs, design of a simple, fair, robust, and efficient MAC is of paramount importance. The main goal of this dissertation is to propose the design principles for robust and traffic-aware MAC mechanisms to provide high bandwidth, low latency, and energy-efficient data communication in mm-wave WiNoCs. The proposed solution has two parts. In the first part, we propose the cross-layer design methodology of robust WiNoC architecture that can minimize the effect of permanent failure of the wireless links and recover from transient failures caused by single event upsets (SEU). Then, in the second part, we present a traffic-aware MAC mechanism that can adjust the transmission slots of the WIs based on the traffic demand of the WIs. The proposed MAC is also robust against the failure of the wireless access mechanism. Finally, as future research directions, this idea of traffic awareness is extended throughout the whole NoC by enabling adaptiveness in both wired and wireless interconnection fabric."--Abstract.

During the past years, wireless communication systems have been rapidly advancing to meet the high data-rate requirements of various emerging applications. However, the existing transceivers have typically been demonstrated using CMOS-compatible technologies that deliver a relatively low equivalent isotropic radiated power in a small unit cell. Moreover, the particular device characteristics are limiting the linear region for operation. Therefore, the main focus of this dissertation is to present and discuss new design methods for transceivers to solve these issues. To reduce the complexity of the transceiver module for further phased-array scaling, a low-noise power amplifier design approach is designed using a 0.15-μm GaN-on-SiC high-electron mobility transistor technology (HEMT). Utilizing a traded off interstage matching topology between loss and bandwidth, the conversion loss induced by the matching network could be effectively reduced. A stacked-FET configuration was adopted to enhance the power handling of the RF switch. Further improvement on the isolation bandwidth was investigated using theoretical analysis on the intrinsic effect of the passive HEMTs. With the successful implementation of the RF front-end circuits, transceiver modules were integrated on Rogers RO3010 substrate. The planar dual exponentially tapered slot antenna phased-array system showed a compact size with simple biasing network compared to the conventional transceiver approach. The presented T/R module was characterized with an over-the-air test at a distance of 1 m, overcoming the free space path loss of 64 dB. It also shows a high flexibility for further integration with a larger number of array systems, which is very promising for future 5G communication systems.

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are expected to promote new applications for the ambulatory health monitoring of chronic patients and elderly population, aiming to improve their quality of life and independence. These networks are composed by wireless sensor nodes (WSNs) used for measuring physiological variables (e.g., glucose level in blood or body temperature) or controlling therapeutic devices (e.g., implanted insulin pumps). These nodes should exhibit a high degree of energy autonomy in order to extend their battery lifetime or even make the node supply to rely on harvesting techniques. Typically, the power budget of WSNs is dominated by the wireless link and, hence, many efforts have been directed during the last years toward the implementation of power efficient transceivers. Because of the short range (typically no more than a few meters) and low data rate (typically in between 10 kb/s and 1 Mb/s), simple communication protocols can be employed. One of these protocols, specifically tailored for WBAN applications, is the Bluetooth low energy (BLE) standard. This book describes the challenges and solutions for the design of ultra-low power transceivers for WBANs applications and presents the implementation details of a BLE transceiver prototype. Coverage includes not only the main concepts and architectures for achieving low power consumption, but also the details of the circuit design and its implementation in a standard CMOS technology.