Design and Analysis of Microwave and Millimeter-wave RF Electrostatic Discharge Protections and Millimeter-wave Multi-Cascode Low Noise Amplifiers
Date Issued
2010
Date
2010
Author(s)
Huang, Bo-Jr
Abstract
In this dissertation, the designs and analysis of RF electrostatic discharging (ESD) protections in microwave and millimeter-wave (MMW) amplifiers and MMW multi-cascode low noise amplifiers (LNAs) are investigated. One goal of the dissertation is to design and implement the RF ESD protection circuit with impressive performance in modern compound semiconductor process, and apply to a 60-GHz LNA. Based on impedance isolation approach, the protection circuit incorporates with the ESD device to form a broadband band-pass filter structure at MMW frequencies in TSMC complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) 0.13-μm technology. Compared with conventional designs, this work presents better RF performance and higher ESD robustness. At the same time, it overcomes the design bottleneck of integrated circuits to operate at V-band frequency, and is the first RF ESD-protected LNA in MMW regime. Moreover, two novel RF ESD protection circuits applied to 5.8-GHz amplifiers in 2-μm GaAs based heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) process are also proposed. One incorporates with the ESD devices to form a band pass filter structure with good impedance matching, which has eight discharging paths. The other is fabricated with parasitic capacitance reduction technique for the ESD protection, and has four discharging paths. The two amplifiers feature much higher ESD robustness and better RF performance than the conventional design with bi-directional discharging paths.
The multi-cascode amplified structure is also described and analyzed in the dissertation. The multi-cascode structure has the advantages of miniature size and high gain. However, since the multi-cascode structure will contribute excess noise at high frequency, only the cascode configuration with two transistors is utilized in recently years. Consequently, a low power multi-cascode structure with noise reduction technique, which incorporates with the high gain characteristic is proposed and employed to the design of millimeter-wave LNAs. For demonstration, a Q-band LNA in CMOS 0.13-μm process with triple-cascode structure and a V-band LNA in 65-nm technology with cascode device are fabricated. The two LNAs feature lower power consumption, better noise figure, higher gain, and more compact size than the conventional LNAs. To the best of our knowledge, the Q-band LNA is the first triple-cascode LNA implemented in MMW frequency.
The multi-cascode amplified structure is also described and analyzed in the dissertation. The multi-cascode structure has the advantages of miniature size and high gain. However, since the multi-cascode structure will contribute excess noise at high frequency, only the cascode configuration with two transistors is utilized in recently years. Consequently, a low power multi-cascode structure with noise reduction technique, which incorporates with the high gain characteristic is proposed and employed to the design of millimeter-wave LNAs. For demonstration, a Q-band LNA in CMOS 0.13-μm process with triple-cascode structure and a V-band LNA in 65-nm technology with cascode device are fabricated. The two LNAs feature lower power consumption, better noise figure, higher gain, and more compact size than the conventional LNAs. To the best of our knowledge, the Q-band LNA is the first triple-cascode LNA implemented in MMW frequency.
Subjects
RF ESD protection
cacode
LNA
MMW
Type
thesis
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