High-Frequency Integrated Circuits for Communication Systems

摘要

This research was directed towards realization of Si monolithic microwavecommunication transceivers. New theoretical methods were developed for the analysis of noise and distortion phenomena in nonlinear communication circuits such as low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) in the over-driven condition, mixers, oscillators and detectors. Using these techniques new circuit topologies were synthesized for the realization of various essential transceiver functions, and prototype circuits were built in state-of-the-art Si monolithic processes and experimentally evaluated. New CAD approaches to the problem of mixer noise analysis were created which allow combination of large-signal time-varying circuit elements plus time-varying noise sources to be analyzed. Using this tool a new mixer topology in Si BiCMOS technology was synthesized with extremely wide dynamic range. The use of on-chip monolithic inductors allowed incorporation of a new tuned local-oscillator (LO) buffer circuit which added important degrees of freedom to the mixer realization.