Millimeter-wave circuits for frequency synthesis and phase shifting
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Date
2025-09-01
Authors
Γιαννακίδης, Κωνσταντίνος
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Abstract
This thesis presents the study, the design and the implementation of two of the most important components of the RF front-end of a modern transceiver. More specifically, an innovative 100 GHz phase shifter as part of a 100 GHz ABF and two innovative Voltage Controlled Oscillators (VCOs), as parts of a 20 GHz PLL and a 60 GHz PLL were designed and implemented.
The proposed phase shifter is a combined architecture passive phase shifter, which consists of different types of passive phase shifters. The combined architecture benefits from the advantages of each phase shifter, whereas it avoids their drawbacks. This phase shifter was designed and implemented in a 140nm SiGe BiCMOS technology and this architecture led to an compact phase shifter, which achieves a phase error rms of 1.97º, a Phase to Gain (P2G) error rms of 0.69 dB in a bandwidth of 92 – 100 GHz whereas it has an average loss of 14.61 dB at 96 GHz.
The 20 GHz VCO was designed and implemented in a 65 nm CMOS technology and it was measured in the PLL system under free running conditions. It operates in a large bandwidth of 17.43 – 22.43 GHz range and it is suitable for E-band and unlicensed 60 GHz band applications. The VCO uses a varactor along with banks of capacitors to implement 16 overlapping bands giving the ability to cover both E- band systems. This VCO achieves a phase noise of -100.01 dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset. The 60 GHz VCO was also designed and implemented in a 65 nm CMOS technology. Its architecture uses a linearized varactor along with a CPW based inductor and an array of capacitors to cover a frequency range 55.55-61.47 GHz. This implementation leads to a low ΔKVCO of 21% and it achieves a phase noise of -99.6 dBc/Hz at an offset of 1 MHz from the carrier.
The measurements results confirmed the superior performance of these designs and proved that these concepts can contribute to the design of a high performance modern wireless communication system.
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Keywords
Phase shifters, Voltage controlled oscillator, Phase locked loop