Design of Current-Mode RF/mm-wave Front-Ends

Master thesis (2021)

Authors

M. Hoogelander Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Contributors

L.C.N. de Vreede Electronics - EEMCS (mentor)
S.M. Alavi Electronics - EEMCS (graduation committee member)
Q. Fan Electronic Instrumentation - EEMCS (graduation committee member)
Arie van Staveren NXP Semiconductors (mentor)
Faculty
Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
Copyright: © 2021 Martijn Hoogelander
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Published Date

15-01-2021

Language

English

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Faculty

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Abstract

This thesis investigates the performance limits and design challenges of two current-mode front-end concepts that target WiFi and mm-wave 5G applications, respectively. The first concept is a power amplifier (PA), which operates at 2.4GHz and is driven by a direct-digital RF modulator (DDRM). A design for the PA, which also includes a parallel-combining transformer (PCT), was proposed, taped and tested in the QUBiC Gen8 technology of NXP Semiconductors. The measured results yield a peak output power of 27dBm, power efficiency of 20%, and an adjacent channel power ratio (ACPR) of -33.05dBc. In the other concept, the DDRM drives a power mixer (PMIX) which up-converts the DDRM signal to mm-wave frequencies. For the PMIX-based front-end, multiple linearity enhancement techniques were proposed and evaluated using simulations. For both current-mode front-end concepts, an extensive analysis on the theoretical output power and power efficiency limit was performed. Although current-mode operation has a high linearity potential, fully reaching this potential turns out not to be trivial, due to various device non-idealities and imperfect impedance matching.

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