This thesis reports on a new implementation of high quality factor (Q) copper (Cu) inductors on CMOS-grade (10-20ohm.cm) silicon (Si) substrates using a fully CMOS-compatible process. A low-temperature (less than300C) fabrication sequence is employed to reduce the loss of Si wafers at RF frequencies by trenching the Si substrate. The high aspect-ratio (30:1) trenches are subsequently bridged over or refilled with a low-loss material to close the open areas and to create a rigid low-loss island (Trenched Si Island) on which the inductors can be fabricated. The method reported here does not require air suspension of the inductors, resulting in mechanically-robust structures that are compatible with any packaging technology. The metal loss of inductors is reduced by electroplating thick (~20m) Cu layer. Fabricated inductors are characterized and modeled from S-parameter measurement. Measurement results are in good agreement with SONNET electromagnetic simulations. A one-turn 0.8nH Cu inductor fabricated on a Trenched Silicon Island (TSI) exhibits high Q of 71 at 8.75 GHz. Whereas, the identical inductor fabricated on a 20um thick silicon dioxide (SiO2) coated standard Si substrate has a maximum Q of 41 at 1.95GHz. Comparing the Q of inductors on TSI with that of other micromachined Si substrates reveals the significant effect of trenching the Si in reduction of the substrate loss. This thesis outlines the design, fabrication, characterization and modeling of spiral type Cu inductors on the TSIs.

Ultra Wideband (UWB) communication has recently drawn considerable attention from academia and industry. This is mainly owing to the ultra high speeds and cognitive features it could offer. The employability of UWB in numerous areas including but not limited to Wireless Personal Area Networks, WPAN's, Body Area Networks, BAN's, radar and medical imaging etc. has opened several avenues of research and development. However, still there is a disagreement on the standardization of UWB. Two contesting radios for UWB are Multiband Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MB-OFDM) and DS-UWB (Direct Sequence Ultra Wideband). As nearly all of the reported research on UWB hasbeen about a very narrow/specific area of the communication system, this thesis looks at the end-to-end performance of an MB-OFDM approach. The overall aim of this project has been to first focus on three different aspects i.e. interference, antenna and propagation aspects of an MB-OFDM system individually and then present a holistic or an end-to-end system analysis finally. In the first phase of the project the author investigated the performance of MB-OFDM system under the effect of his proposed generic or technology non-specific interference. Avoiding the conventional Gaussian approximation, the author has employed an advanced stochastic method. A total of two approaches have been presented in this phase of the project. The first approach is an indirect one which involves the Moment Generating Functions (MGF's) of the Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise-Ratio (SINR) and the Probability Density Function (pdf) of the SINR to calculate the Average Probabilities of Error of an MB-OFDM system under the influence of proposed generic interference. This approach assumed a specific two-dimensional Poisson spatial/geometric placement of interferers around the victim MB-OFDM receiver. The second approach is a direct approach and extends the first approach by employing a wider class of generic interference. In the second phase of the work the author designed, simulated, prototyped and tested novel compact monopole planar antennas for UWB application. In this phase of the research, compact antennas for the UWB application are presented. These designs employ low-loss Rogers duroid substrates and are fed by Copla-nar Waveguides. The antennas have a proposed feed-line to the main radiating element transition region. This transition region is formed by a special step-generating function-set called the "Inverse Parabolic Step Sequence" or IPSS. These IPSS-based antennas are simulated, prototyped and then tested in the ane-choic chamber. An empirical approach, aimed to further miniaturize IPSS-based antennas, was also derived in this phase of the project. The empirical approach has been applied to derive the design of a further miniaturized antenna. More-over, an electrical miniaturization limit has been concluded for the IPSS-based antennas. The third phase of the project has investigated the effect of the indoor furnishing on the distribution of the elevation Angle-of-Arrival (AOA) of the rays at the receiver. Previously, constant distributions for the AOA of the rays in the elevation direction had been reported. This phase of the research has proposed that the AOA distribution is not fixed. It is established by the author that the indoor elevation AOA distributions depend on the discrete levels of furnishing. A joint time-angle-furnishing channel model is presented in this research phase. In addition, this phase of the thesis proposes two vectorial or any direction AOA distributions for the UWB indoor environments. Finally, the last phase of this thesis is presented. As stated earlier, the overall aim of the project has been to look at three individual aspects of an MB-OFDM system, initially, and then look at the holistic system, finally. Therefore, this final phase of the research presents an end-to-end MB-OFDM system analysis. The interference analysis of the first phase of the project is revisited to re-calculate the probability of bit error with realistic/measured path loss exponents which have been reported in the existing literature. In this method, Gaussian Quadrature Rule based approximations are computed for the average probability of bit error. Last but not the least, an end-to-end or comprehensive system equation/impulse response is presented. The proposed system equation covers more aspects of an indoor UWB system than reported in the existing literature.