Analog CMOS Circuits for 60 GHz - Multi-Gigabit per second Wireless Communication

Description of research

Over the past decade wireless communication in the millimeter-wave (mmW) radio spectrum has received increased attention from regulators and industry. Depending on the world region, up to 9 GHz of the radio spectrum around 60 GHz has become available for unlicensed short range wireless communication. This spectrum is divided in four high bandwidth channels - 2.16GHz separated - with the purpose of providing very high throughput (multi-Gbps) wireless links in an indoor environment.

Current research in both academics and industry aims to bring down both power consumption and costs of these transceivers with several orders of magnitude to enable the wide spread use of 60 GHz radio in future portable devices.The following aspects are important to consider in order to achieve the multi-Gbps transfer rates over these short distances (less than 10 meters) with minimal power consumption, while maintaining the Quality of Service (QoS) required by the application.With the integration of more and more functionality in portable devices, the QoS required for each transfer session can vary greatly on a single device. For instance a live video stream has different link requirements than a fast file download session.Also, the available supply power/energy on either side of the wireless link is often asymmetrical and changes from session to session.Furthermore, for each session channel conditions like path loss (distance), fading, and interference from other devices, change and affect the available or the required signal power and/or directivity.So the link parameters need to be balanced such that the least energized device operates most efficiently under the channel- and QoS conditions at hand. This requires a lot of flexibility from the transceiver hardware.It is expected that the main application of 60 GHz radio will be consumer electronics. CMOS technology has proven to be the workhorse for this application because of its low cost in bulk volumes. However, compared to previously commercialized CMOS radio transceivers 60GHz provides new challenges both in the RF and the baseband part of the transceiver. At baseband, the signal bandwidth has increased from 10s or 100s of MHz to the GHz range, and channel bonding could increase the bandwidth even further. Additionally, the analog baseband circuits also may need to support signal level equalization and beam forming and -steering functionality over this increased bandwidth. This calls for new analog baseband circuit design solutions.

The aim of this research is to study the feasibility of reconfigurable analog baseband circuit designs that provide an adjustable signal pass-band, phase-shift/delay, noise and linearity, and can be tailored to maximize power efficiency for each scenario and implement these designs for proof-of-concept purposes.

Advisor(s)

Prof.dr.ir. Bram Nauta

Duration

1 Dec 2010 – 1 Dec 2013

Project

60 Ghz Baseband

Funding institution

ST-Microelectronics France

Strategic Research Orientation

Wireless and Sensor Systems

Links to relevant web pages:

Pictures

Description: Borggreve, MSc D (David)

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Home CTIT symposium 2013 About CTIT News NIRICT Research Meet the PhDs Working at CTIT Internal Information Conferences Open Calls (updated May 3, 2013) Library and Videos Knowledge Transfer Links Sitemap Search	Analog CMOS Circuits for 60 GHz - Multi-Gigabit per second Wireless Communication Description of research Over the past decade wireless communication in the millimeter-wave (mmW) radio spectrum has received increased attention from regulators and industry. Depending on the world region, up to 9 GHz of the radio spectrum around 60 GHz has become available for unlicensed short range wireless communication. This spectrum is divided in four high bandwidth channels - 2.16GHz separated - with the purpose of providing very high throughput (multi-Gbps) wireless links in an indoor environment. Current research in both academics and industry aims to bring down both power consumption and costs of these transceivers with several orders of magnitude to enable the wide spread use of 60 GHz radio in future portable devices.The following aspects are important to consider in order to achieve the multi-Gbps transfer rates over these short distances (less than 10 meters) with minimal power consumption, while maintaining the Quality of Service (QoS) required by the application.With the integration of more and more functionality in portable devices, the QoS required for each transfer session can vary greatly on a single device. For instance a live video stream has different link requirements than a fast file download session.Also, the available supply power/energy on either side of the wireless link is often asymmetrical and changes from session to session.Furthermore, for each session channel conditions like path loss (distance), fading, and interference from other devices, change and affect the available or the required signal power and/or directivity.So the link parameters need to be balanced such that the least energized device operates most efficiently under the channel- and QoS conditions at hand. This requires a lot of flexibility from the transceiver hardware.It is expected that the main application of 60 GHz radio will be consumer electronics. CMOS technology has proven to be the workhorse for this application because of its low cost in bulk volumes. However, compared to previously commercialized CMOS radio transceivers 60GHz provides new challenges both in the RF and the baseband part of the transceiver. At baseband, the signal bandwidth has increased from 10s or 100s of MHz to the GHz range, and channel bonding could increase the bandwidth even further. Additionally, the analog baseband circuits also may need to support signal level equalization and beam forming and -steering functionality over this increased bandwidth. This calls for new analog baseband circuit design solutions. The aim of this research is to study the feasibility of reconfigurable analog baseband circuit designs that provide an adjustable signal pass-band, phase-shift/delay, noise and linearity, and can be tailored to maximize power efficiency for each scenario and implement these designs for proof-of-concept purposes. Advisor(s) Prof.dr.ir. Bram Nauta Duration 1 Dec 2010 – 1 Dec 2013 Project 60 Ghz Baseband Funding institution ST-Microelectronics France Strategic Research Orientation Wireless and Sensor Systems Links to relevant web pages: Pictures