Presentation by Prof. Jeyanandh Paramesh, Carnegie Mellon University, August 20, 2012
From Microwave to Millimeter-wave: The Design of Reconfigurable, High-Bandwidth CMOS Radios
- Abstract
The first part of this talk describes the application of phase-change vias
to reconfigure CMOS integrated circuits. CMOS-compatible phase-change
materials feature high contrasts in resistivity between the amorphous and
crystalline states. While this property is being exploited in an emerging
class of non-volatile memories, we are exploring its utility as a
technological element to reconfigure integrated circuits, especially analog
and RF circuits. The development of CMOS-compatible reconfigurable inductors,
their application in a reconfigurable LC-VCO, as well as the underlying
material choices and integration techniques are discussed. Other
reconfigurable CMOS circuits including a low-offset comparator and a
non-volatile look-up table are described. Characterization results from
prototype circuits are presented to validate these concepts.
The second part of this talk addresses the design of low-power millimeter-wave
radios in CMOS with extremely wide bandwidths. The mm-wave frequency bands
hold enormous potential for multi-Gb/s communications as well as emerging
imaging and ranging applications. The realization of this potential will be
underpinned by the development of high-performance, power-efficient
transceivers in nanoscale CMOS technologies. Two key challenges must be met
towards achieving this goal. First, the mm-wave front-end circuits must be
designed to operate over extremely wide bandwidths of several tens of GHz,
both to exploit the large bandwidth availability, and also to provide
sufficient margins to tolerate process, voltage and temperature variations
that are increasingly problematic in nanoscale CMOS. Second, reducing power
consumption in the front-end is imperative especially since phased-arrays are
mandated in mm-wave transceivers.
This latter half of this talk describes our recent work towards achieving
these goals. Transformer-based unilateralization techniques are introduced to
enable the design of low-noise amplifiers that achieve over 10 GHz of
bandwidth and can operate from a scalable power supply from the nominal
voltage down to very low voltages. Low-voltage, ultra-wide bandwidth
receivers for pulse-based mm-wave signals, and phased-array receivers, based
on the aforementioned amplifiers, are presented. The design of
transformer-based voltage-controlled oscillators with several 10's of GHz of
tuning range is then described. Results from the characterization of several
test circuits in 130 nm and 45 nm CMOS technologies are presented.
- Biography
Jeyanandh Paramesh received the B.Tech, degree from IIT, Madras, the M.S degree
from Oregon State University and the Ph.D degrees from the University of
Washington, Seattle, all in Electrical Engineering. He is currently Assistant
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.
He has held product development positions with Analog Devices, where he
designed high-performance data converters, and Motorola where he designed
analog and RF integrated circuits for cellular transceivers. From 2002 to 2004,
he was with the Communications Circuit Lab, Intel where he developed
multi-antenna receivers, high-efficiency power amplifiers and high-speed data
converters high data-rate wireless transceivers. His research interests
include the design of RF and mixed-signal integrated circuits and systems for
a wide variety of applications.