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Abstract:

In the world of high-definition video and ever-growing data rates, it is reasonable to see 60 GHz technology as the next step in personal wireless communication. Scaling the CMOS technology has already been an enabler for multiple wireless technologies and it is still the main drive towards multi-Gbps transmission systems.The low cost of a single CMOS chip is, however, at the expense of lower performance of transistors working in the high frequency regime. This thesis treats circuits, subsystems and systems designed in deeply-scaled CMOS technologies that bring the 60 GHz technology closer to a portable consumer device.As the technology implies the processing of mm-wave signals, the circuits being closest to the antenna interface are discussed, designed and tested. These circuits are the low-noise amplifiers and power amplifiers and they are often good examples of classic microwave engineering. For this thesis both types of amplifiers were designed with stress put on miniaturization. Therefore, lumped-element matching is preferred together with simple resonance tuning to minimize the chip area occupied by passive components. Contrary to previous consumer wireless systems, the 60 GHz radio can and will benefit from the implementation of phased antenna arrays. Phased arrays offer improved sensitivity and output power and thanks to beam-steering capabilities facilitate transmission in non-line-of-sight conditions. For such arrays, a multitude of front-end circuits is needed followed by beamformer subsystems processing and combining signals coming from different antenna paths. The beamformers are classified in this thesis in three main groups depending on their position in the signal processing chain. The feasibility and solutions for all the main groups of beamforming circuits are discussed in this thesis, and some of the circuit concepts are proved with measurements. Moreover, the course of this thesis has shown that the IC design of circuits for a phased array cannot be completed without a proper overview of the system as a whole. Therefore, a number of almost feature-complete phased array systems has been designed within the 60 GHz project at imec, in which the system-level aspects and solutions have been tested. Finally, conclusions are distilled from the completed work and some suggestions for future research are given.