Circuits for MM-wave Radio and Radar Transceiver Front-ends

This thesis presents the design and implementation of 140 GHz to 170 GHz transceivers in SiGe HBT technologies and a 95 GHz receiver in 65 nm CMOS technology. Optimization and modeling of all passive components and transistor biasing at peak-fT and peak-fMAX current densities are employed to obtain higher frequency operation of circuit blocks compared to state of the art. These circuit blocks include static and dynamic frequency dividers, voltage-controlled oscillators, and tuned mm-wave amplifiers. Design procedures for a 100 GHz static divider, a 136 GHz dynamic divider, as well as low-power divider topologies are presented. A methodology for the design of quadrature voltage-controlled oscillators in CMOS and SiGe technologies is described, together with a technique for reduced-power LO-path design. Tuned 5-stage 140 GHz, 160 GHz, and 170 GHz amplifiers with more than 15 dB in SiGe HBT technology are reported. Using these circuit building blocks, a 95 GHz receiver in 65 nm CMOS technology with 12.5 dB gain, 7 dB noise figure, and 206mW. Also, several 165 GHz transceivers are implemented in SiGe HBT technology. The 165 GHz transceivers that include an oscillator, a divider, RX, LO, and TX amplifiers, and a mixer, were designed with and without on-chip antennas. They have -3 dB conversion gain, all achieved at RF, and -3.5 dBm output power. Following that, a 140 GHz fully-integrated transceiver and a 140 GHz transceiver array with on-chip patch antennas were designed in a 0.13micron SiGe BiCMOS technology, demonstrating the highest integration levels at this frequency in silicon to date. These transceivers feature 136-145 GHz voltage-controlled oscillators, 20 dB receive-amplifiers and mixers,transmit-amplifiers with amplitude-shift keying modulation, and variable-gain IF amplifiers. At 140 GHz the transceivers have up to 32 dB conversion gain and -8 dBm output power. Wireless data transmission at 4 Gb/s was demonstrated over 1.15m with off-chip horn antennas, and over 2 cm with the on chip antennas. With on-chip antennas, the transceiver could detect a Doppler shift of as little as 25 Hz. Both transceivers were also operational in frequency-modulated continuous-wave radar mode.Ph