DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS FOR 60GHz CMOS RADIOs

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I.
1.

CONTENTS:
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2.
3.

4.
5. 6.

INTRODUCTION RADIO ARCHITECTURE MILLIMETER-WAVE ACTIVE & PASSIVE ELEMENTS KEY RF BUILDING BLOCKS CONCLUSION REFERENCES

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II. INTRODUCTION
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The advances over the past fully integrated RF CMOS transceivers a reality. Drawback of using below 10GHz range is that it will be over congested in

near future.
In July 2003 the IEEE 802.15.3 working group for WPAN began

investigating the use of the 7 GHz of unlicensed spectrum around 6O GHz.

Alternate physical layer for high-data rate applications.

Targeted data rate is 2Gb/s.

Difficulties: high path loss, limited to short distance range

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In order for 60 GHz wireless systems to have mass deployment and

meet consumer market- place requirements, the cost and size of any solution has to be significantly low than the current deployment.
Digital CMOS technology is the lowest-cost option, and with its rapid

improvement due to continual scaling.

CMOS technology is becoming a viable option to address the mm-wave

market.

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III.RADIO ARCHITECTURE
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3.1 ANTENNA ARRAYS:

Disadvantage of a 60 GHz radio is the small antenna capture area . Friis propagation loss is given by:
Fortunately, the antenna directivities D1,2 can be improved. For a fixed antenna aperture size A the directivity is improvement in the received power by moving to higher

frequencies. For example, a 60 GHz system with a 16-element antenna array has 3 dB gain over a 5 GHz system.

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3.2 TRANSCEIVER ARCHITECTURE:

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A generic adaptive beam forming multiple antenna radio system is

shown in Figure 1.
The main benefit of the multi-antenna architecture used here is the

increased gain the directional antenna pattern provides.

In addition , also provides spatial diversity, automatic spatial power

combining, and electronic beam steerability.

Flexible multi-input multi-output (MIMO) system. The main drawback is the high transceiver complexity and power

consumption since there is little sharing of the hardware components.

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FIGURE 2:
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3.3 PACKAGING:
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For an antenna array, N transceivers (about 10) will need to be

integrated into a low-cost mm- wave package.

Low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) substrates offer a promising

packaging option due to their low cost and good mm-wave performance.
Low-loss transmission lines and efficient antennas operating at mm-

wave frequencies have been demonstrated on LTCC by researchers .

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IV.MILLIMETER-WAVE ACTIVE AND PASSIVE ELEMENTS

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4.1 MILLIMETER-WAVE TRANSISTOR DESIGN:

Reducing parasitic capacitance improves performance .
However, at mm-wave frequencies resistive losses due to transistor

and layout parasitics play an increasingly important role since they dissipate power that cannot be restored.
This limitation is best captured by the maximum frequency of

oscillation (fmax) figure of merit, which is the maximum frequency at which the device remains active.

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4.1 MILLIMETER-WAVE TRANSISTOR DESIGN:

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The value of fmax is not only determined by sizing and bias conditions,

but is also highly dependent on these resistive parasitics.

As mentioned, fmax is limited by resistive losses, the most significant

being the gate resistance (RG), series source/drain resistances (RS, RD), non-quasi-static channel resistance (rnqs), and resistive substrate network (Rsb, Rdb, and Rbb).
By proper layout, the fmax of an NMOS transistor in a standard 130 nm

CMOS technology can easily surpass 100 GHz.

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FIGURE 3:
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4.2 TRANSMISSION LINES:

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Compared to spiral inductors commonly used for RF circuits, transmission

lines are better suited to accurately realize the small inductors required at these frequencies. inherent scalability provided by the quasi-transverse electromagnetic (quasiTEM) fundamental mode of propagation, greatly simplifies compact modeling and simulation. Although transmission lines at lower frequencies are lossy and consume significant die area, at 60 GHz typical transmission line lengths are less than 200 m. Inductive effects of interconnect wiring cannot be neglected. However, if the interconnects are implemented using transmission lines, all distributed effects will be taken into account. Another benefit of using transmission lines is that the well defined ground return path significantly reduces magnetic and electric field coupling to adjacent structures.
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V. KEY RF BUILDING BLOCKS

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Furthermore, accurate device models enable predictable frequency

response and distortion performance.

Allowing the circuit designer to fully exploit the capabilities of the

technology.

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5.1 AMPLIFIERS:
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A wideband general-purpose 60 GHz amplifier has been designed.

A die micrograph of the three stage amplifier is shown in Fig.

Gain stages consisting of NMOS common source cascode amplifiers are

used to reduce the Miller capacitance.

CPW(coplanar waveguide) transmission lines are used extensively.

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FIGURE 1:
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5.2 MIXERS:
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Mixers are of critical importance in transceivers. In the mm-wave region, it is difficult to obtain high-gain CMOS low-

noise amplifiers.
Simpler architectures are preferred. A single-gate mixer is also a transconductance mixer, as the time-

varying gm(t) of the common-source stage is the main source of frequency conversion.

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5.3 LOCAL OSCILLATORS:

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Fundamental-mode and push-push VCOs can be employed. Phase noise of the oscillator is limited by Q of varactor. DC power consumption is not the primary concern. It becomes increasingly difficult to meet large tuning range and high-

Q without introducing parasitics.

Another approach, commonly used in mm- wave systems, is to use a

lower-frequency LO in conjunction with a frequency multiplier.

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5.4 POWER AMPLIFIERS:

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CMOS scaling exacerbates the difficulty of generating sufficient output

power at the transmitter.

Novel circuit topologies for power combining may be required. Another approach is to use a spatial power combining scheme.

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VI.CONCLUSION
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The feasibility of a CMOS wireless Transceiver capable of 6O GHz operation has been investigated.

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REFERENCES:
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1.

2. 3.

4.

5. 6.

Design Considerations for 60 GHz CMOS Radios by Chinh H. Doan, Sohrab Emami, David A. Sobel, Ali M. Niknejad, and Robert W. Brodersen, Berkeley Wireless Research Center, 0163-6804/04/ 2004 IEEE IEEE 802.15 Working Group for WPAN; http://www.ieee802.org/15/ M. R. Williamson, G. E. Athanasiadou, and A. R. Nix,Investigating the Effects of Antenna Directivity on Wireless Indoor Communication at 60 GHz, 8th IEEE Intl. Symp. PIMRC, Sept. 1997, pp. 63539. S. Reynolds et al., 60GHz Transceiver Circuits in SiGe Bipolar Technology, IEEE Intl. Solid-State Circuits Conf. Dig. Tech. Papers, Feb. 2004, pp. 44243. C. H. Doan et al., Design of CMOS for 60GHz applica- tions, IEEE Intl. Solid-State Circuits Conf. Dig. Tech. Papers, Feb. 2004, pp. 44041. A. Yamada et al., 60GHz Ultra Compact Transmitter/Receiver with a Low Phase Noise PLL-oscilla- tor, IEEE MTT-S Intl. Microwave Symp. Dig., June 2003, pp. 203538.

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THANK YOU!
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