Abstract

Modern transceiver integrated circuits used in wireless communication systems seek low power wide frequency range receiver front-ends (RxFE) to support multiple communication bands. For this, RxFE leveraging passive N-path mixer first approach are becoming progressively popular due to their low power nature. However, N-path RxFE requires N precise phases of a local oscillator (LO) to control mixer operation, which becomes challenging as the frequency of operation increases (> 10 GHz). In this paper, we give useful insights and present design considerations for the faithful generation of different non- overlapping phases of LO to achieve wide band RF input match. We also present the design and post-layout simulation results of a 4-path mixer based 8-20 GHz RxFE with programmable gain of 10 to 29 dB in TSMC 65 nm CMOS technology. In post-layout simulations, the proposed design achieves an IIP3 of > -10 dB, S11 of < -12 dB and consumes total power of 66 mW from 1.2 V supply.

Abstract

Respiratory diseases contribute to a majority of deaths worldwide every year. Diseases such as asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia also adversely impact a person’s social and economic conditions. They can seriously threaten their health if left undiagnosed and untreated. Techniques such as auscultation are used in the diagnosis of most respiratory diseases. However, using such techniques requires an experienced physician and the diagnosis is subjective. To overcome these challenges, in this work, a portable handheld system has been proposed and a proof of concept implemented to detect and classify respiratory diseases automatically through the use of convolutional neural networks (CNN) running on mobile platforms. Mel spectrograms are generated from the audio signals and fed to the CNN for classification. This work makes use of the publicly available HF Lung dataset. The classification accuracy achieved by the current implementation using a Raspberry Pi for processing is 80.55% with a sensitivity of 95.65% and specificity of 98.80% on the HF Lung dataset.

Abstract

Recently, there has been a major shift in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) from the camera and LiDAR-oriented systems to mmWave radar-based systems. Such high-frequency band radars currently using frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) technique require programmable dividers with large divide ratios and fine frequency resolution to obtain high-frequency chirps with sufficiently large bandwidth. This paper presents a low-power multi-modulus programmable frequency divider for a frequency synthesizer operating in the 19.25-20.25 GHz frequency band from a reference frequency of 40 MHz. The divider consumes 14 mW of power and is capable of producing divide ratios in the range of 481.25-506.25 with a fine resolution of 1 MHz. The divider has a phase noise of −146 dBc/Hz at an offset of 2 kHz.

Abstract

Recent developments in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) have raised the demands of mmWave radars in 24 GHz and 77 GHz band. For higher accuracy and precision, frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) technique has become very popular for mmWave radars, which requires low phase noise and high bandwidth chirp frequency synthesizers. In this work, we present analysis and design of a low phase noise, transformer tank based mmWave voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) near 20 GHz for multiplier based 77 GHz FMCW chirp synthesizer. The proposed VCO design is implemented in 65 nm CMOS technology. Post layout simulations show that the proposed VCO exhibits a figure-of-merit is 192 dBc/Hz and phase noise of -117.98 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset while operating at 18.94 GHz and achieves a tuning range of 1.42 GHz (18.94-20.36 GHz), while consuming a power of 13.78 mW from 1.1 V supply.

Abstract

This work introduces an ultra low power gm-boosted Colpitts voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) with a transformer based tank operating near 20 GHz. The proposed VCO is implemented in TSMC 65 nm CMOS technology. Through postlayout simulations, it is demonstrated that the proposed VCO exhibits a remarkable figure-of-merit of 196.26 dBc/Hz and achieves a phase noise of -111.21 dBc/Hz at a 1 MHz offset while operating at 19.6 GHz. Additionally, the VCO provides a tuning range of 1.7 GHz (18 - 19.7 GHz) and consumes only 1.2 mW of power from a 1 V supply.

Abstract

Recent developments in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) have raised the demands of mmWave radars in 24 GHz and 77 GHz band. For higher accuracy and precision, frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) technique has become very popular for mmWave radars, which requires low phase noise and high bandwidth chirp frequency synthesizers. In this work, we present analysis and design of a low phase noise, transformer tank based mmWave voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) near 20 GHz for multiplier based 77 GHz FMCW chirp synthesizer. The proposed VCO design is implemented in 65 nm CMOS technology. Post layout simulations show that the proposed VCO exhibits a figure-of-merit is 192 dBc/Hz and phase noise of -117.98 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset while operating at 18.94 GHz and achieves a tuning range of 1.42 GHz (18.94-20.36 GHz), while consuming a power of 13.78 mW from 1.1 V supply.

Abstract

Recent developments in mmWave radar technologies have enabled the truly non-contact heart-rate (HR) and breath-rate (BR) measurement approaches, which provides a great ease in patient monitoring. Additionally, these technologies also provide opportunities to simultaneously detect HR and BR of multiple patients, which has become increasingly important for efficient mass monitoring scenarios. In this work, a frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) mmWave radar based truly non-contact multiple patient HR and BR monitoring system has been presented. Furthermore, a novel approach is also proposed, which combines multiple processing methods using a least squares solution to improve measurement accuracy, generalization, and handle measurement error. The proposed system has been developed using Texas Instruments’ FMCW radar and experimental results with multiple subjects are also presented, which show >97% and >93% accuracy in the measured BR and HR values, respectively.

Abstract

Quantum sensing applications such as nitrogen vacancy based magnetometry require phase locked loops (PLL), which can synthesize microwave frequencies in a narrow band near 2.87 GHz. Moreover, it is also required that the PLLs should have low noise and low jitter for high stability and fast settling time. These requirements seek low phase noise voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) with small variation in its gain (KVCO) within the desired tuning range. In this paper, we present a technique for designing a low phase noise VCO with low KVCO and small KVCO variation. To validate the proposed technique, an LC VCO has been designed and implemented in 0.18 µm CMOS process and post layout simulation results are presented. The simulation results show that the proposed LC VCO achieves KVCO variation of ±3.82% in the frequency range of 2.75 - 2.94 GHz and exhibits a phase noise of -118.64 dBc/Hz at an offset of 1 MHz, while consuming 9 mW of power from a 1.8 V supply.

Abstract

This work presents an ultra low phase noise 30 GHz oscillator topology in 14 nm technology for an active mode Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) based resonator that utilizes resonant-fin transistors (RFT). A novel oscillator architecture has been presented for the active mode RFT, which can be modelled as a voltage controlled current source with 270° phase shift between its output current and input voltage. The proposed oscillator has been designed in 14 nm GF technology and simulation results show that it achieves phase noise less than −144 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset for 30 GHz carrier frequency for active mode RFT with quality factor of 10,000, while consuming 5.5 mW power from 0.8 V supply.

Abstract

Fully monolithic carrier synthesis at mmWave frequencies (>10 GHz) seek on-chip high quality factor resonators in micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. However, at mmWave frequencies, MEMS resonator’s usage is severely limited by its high static capacitance (C 0 ) and low electromechanical coupling. In this work, we propose a technique of partial cancellation of C 0 of mmWave MEMS resonator to utilize it for the development of an extremely low phase noise oscillator. Based on the proposed technique, we also present a methodology for low phase noise fully monolithic mmWave oscillator design. To validate the proposed technique and methodology, design and simulation results of an oscillator with 10.33 GHz on-chip MEMS resonator model in 65 nm CMOS have been also presented in this paper. Simulation results show that the oscillator achieves phase noise and FoM of -137 dBc/Hz and 212.8 dBc/Hz, respectively at 1 MHz offset, while consuming 2.8 mW power from 1 V supply.