This dissertation presents a novel large signal modeling approach which can be used to accurately model CMOS transistors used in millimeter-wave CMOS power amplifiers. The large signal model presented in this work is classified as an empirical compact device model which incorporates temperature-dependency and device periphery scaling. These added features allow for efficient design of multi-stage CMOS power amplifiers by virtue of the process-scalability. Prior to the presentation of the details of the model development, background is given regarding the 90nm CMOS process, device test structures, de-embedding methods and device measurements, all of which are necessary preliminary steps for any device modeling methodology. Following discussion of model development, the design of multi-stage 60GHz Class AB CMOS power amplifiers using the developed model is shown, providing further model validation. The body of research concludes with an investigation into designing a CMOS power amplifier operating at frequencies close to the millimeter-wave range with a potentially higher-efficiency class of power amplifier operation. Specifically, a 24GHz 130nm CMOS Inverse Class F power amplifier is simulated using a modified version of the device model, fabricated and compared with simulations. This further demonstrates the robustness of this device modeling method.

Driven by the ever growing consumer wireless electronics market and the need for higher speed communications, the 60-GHz technology gifted with an unlicensed 9 GHz frequency band in the millimeter-wave spectrum has emerged as the next-generation Wi-Fi for short-range wireless communications. High-performance, cost-effective, and small form-factor 60-GHz antenna systems for portable devices are key enablers of this technology. This work presents various antenna architectures built on low-cost organic packages. Planar end-fire switched beam antenna modules that can easily conform to various surfaces inside a wireless device platform are developed. The planar antenna package is realized on thin flexible LCP dielectrics. One design is based on a planar Yagi-Uda antenna element and the second on a tapered slot antenna element. A low-loss microstrip-to-slot via transition is designed to provide wide impedance matching for end-fire antenna paradigms. The novel transition utilizes the slow-wave concept to provide unbalanced to balanced mode conversion as well as impedance matching. It is demonstrated that the planar antenna packages may be even integrated with active circuits that are cavity recessed inside the thin dielectric. A compact switched-beam antenna module is demonstrated. The first-ever integrated mm-wave active antenna module on organic package capable of generating both broadside and end-fire radiation is also developed in this work. Both broadside and end-fire radiators are co-designed and integrated into a single multilayer package to achieve optimal directivity, efficiency and frequency bandwidth and yet maintain excellent isolation between the two radiators. Post-wall cavities, image theory and dielectric slab modes concepts are invoked to optimize these functions. Active circuitry are integrated into the same package to add control functions such as beam switching, and also amplify the packaged-antenna gain when operated either as a transmitter or a receiver. A significant challenge in the design of antenna systems for wireless platforms is the assessment of embedded antenna performance, that is, the proximity effects of the platform chassis on the embedded antenna. Various antennas are mounted at different locations inside a laptop computer chassis: modeling and experimental studies are carried out to characterize this problem that is apparent to an antenna behind a radome. Air traffic control radars usually require cavity filters that can handle high power and low in-band insertion loss while providing enough out-band rejection to prevent interference with neighboring channels. Such radars that operate in the S-band consist of filter banks frequency micro electromechanical systems (RF-MEMS) switches. Evanescent-mode mode cavity resonators are loaded with RF-MEMS tuning capacitance networks to control the resonant frequency of a second-order bandpass filter. The second part is the design of a novel cavity filter architecture for enhanced selectivity near the passband. It is a second-order folded cavity resonator bandpass filter with magnetic source-load cross coupling. This filter can have at least two finite transmission zeros near the passband.

With rapid advances in semiconductor technologies and packaging schemes, wireless products have become more versatile, portable, inexpensive, and user friendly over last few decades. However, the ever-growing demand of consumers to share information efficiently at higher speeds requires higher data rates, increased functionality, lower cost, and more reliability. The 60-GHz-frequency band, with 7 GHz license-free bandwidth addresses, such demands, and promises a low-cost multi-Gbps wireless transmission with a power budget in the order of 100 mW. This dissertation presents the systematic development of key building blocks and integrated 60-GHz-receiver solutions. Two different approaches are investigated and implemented in this dissertation: (1) low-cost SiGe-based direct-conversion low-power receiver front-end utilizing gain-boosting techniques in the front-end low-noise amplifier, and (2) CMOS-based heterodyne receiver front-end suitable for high-performance single-chip 60 GHz transceiver solution. The ASK receiver chip, implemented using 0.18 ?m SiGe, presents a complete antenna-to-baseband multi-gigabit 60 GHz solution with the lowest reported power budget (25 pJ/bit) to date. The subharmonic direct conversion front-end, implemented using 0.18 ?m SiGe, presents excellent conversion properties with a 4 GHz DSB RF bandwidth. On the other hand, the CMOS heterodyne implementation of the 60 GHz front-end receiver, targeted towards a robust, single-chip, high-performance, low-power, and integrated 60 GHz transceiver solution, presents the most wideband receiver front-end reported to date. Finally, different multi-band and tunable millimeter-wave circuits are presented towards the future implementation of cognitive and multi-band millimeter-wave radio.

This project was carried out for a Company in the mining and construction business, and focused on the development of a radar based material monitoring solution for conveyor belts. A minor prestudy showed that there are possible customer values related to material monitoring solutions for equipment relevant for the Company, and that such solutions using radar possibly can fulfil the application requirements. The main focus of the project was chosen based on this prestudy. The methods used were mainly experiments with the developed prototype, and a study of literature. The prototype was developed with an aim to measure mass flow and to monitor the material surface for deviances. Millimeter-wave pulsed coherent radar sensors were used, and data processing approaches included Kalman filtering. Results showed that mass flow can be calculated using the tested senors and data processing models, as the calculated mass flow was well in line with a belt scale reference, but that additional data is needed to prove consistency in the results. Results also showed that trends in the material surface can be observed in the radar data, indicating the possibilities to detect deviances. From a technical perspective, results and the possibilities for further development and improvement show that radar based solutions can be used for applications relevant for the Company. / Detta examensarbete genomfördes för ett företag inomgruv- och anläggningsbranschen och handlade om utvecklingen av en radarbaserad prototyp för mätningar av materialet på transportband. En mindre förstudie visade på möjliga kundvärden relaterade till sådana mätningar, samt att radar har potentialen att uppfylla kravspecifikationen för flera applikationer. Huvudfokuset för projektet valdes sedan utifrån denna förstudie. Metoderna som användes var främst experiment med den utvecklade prototypen samt litteraturstudier. Prototypen utvecklades med syfte att mäta massflöde samt att upptäcka avikelser i materialets yta. Radarsensorer med en frekvens på 60GHz användes, och för databehandling användes bland annat ett Kalman-filter. Resultaten visade att massflöde kan beräknas med de testade sensorerna och databehandlingsmodellerna, eftersom det beräknade massflödet låg i linje med referensdata från en bandvåg. Ytterligare data behövs emellertid för att visa hur resultaten påverkas av förändrade omständigheter, såsom storleken på fragmenten som mäts. Studien visade också att mönster i materialytan kan observeras i radardatan, vilket indikerar att det också är möjligt upptäcka avvikelser. Ur ett teknisktperspektiv visar resultaten och möjligheterna till vidareutveckling tillsammans att radarbaserade lösningar kan användas för applikationer relevanta för företaget.

This thesis presents the development of various methods for measuring rainfall rates using horizontally-pointing millimetre-wave radars. This work builds from the combination of a T-matrix scattering model that allows the scattering from almost arbitrarily pro led rotationally symmetric particles to be calculated, and drop shape models that allow the effects of temperature and pressure on the shape to be taken into account. Many hours of rain data have been collected with 38 and 94 GHz FMCW radars, as well as with a disdrometer and weather station. These have been used to develop single- and dual-frequency techniques for measuring rainfall rate. A temperature, polarisation and attenuation corrected application of simple power-law relationships between reflectivity and rainfall rate has been successfully demonstrated at 38 GHz. However, at 94 GHz it has been found that more detailed functions relating reflectivity, attenuation and rainfall rate are beneficial. A reflectivity-based determination of attenuation has been adapted from the literature and successfully applied to the 94 GHz data, improving the estimate of rainfall rate at longer ranges. The same method for estimating attenuation has also been used in a dualfrequency technique based on the ratio of the extinction coefficients at 38 and 94 GHz, but with less success. However, a dual-frequency reflectivity ratio based approach has been successfully developed and applied, producing good estimates of rainfall rate, as well as reasonable estimates of two drop-size distribution parameters. Simulations of radar measurements of airborne volcanic ash have also been carried out, demonstrating that for most reasonable measurement configurations the optimal frequencies would typically be 35 GHz or 94 GHz, not the more commonly used 3-10 GHz. It has also been shown that various existing millimetre-wave radars could be used to detect ash. Finally, there is a discussion of the optimal frequencies for dual-frequency measurement of volcanic ash.

The thesis presents a compact, miniature, and low cost antenna array designed for millimeter-wave frequencies for future 5th generation (5G) mobile applications. The proposed antenna array is a geometrically modified structure of the Franklin array, which allowed to transform a conventional narrowband array into a wideband antenna array. It is composed of five millimetre-wave circular patch radiation elements with phasing stubs. The designed array, fabricated on the commercial Rogers RO3003 substrate with small form factor of 8x25x0.5 mm3, covers the upcoming 5G band of 23.6-30.3 GHz, with peak gain as 10.8 dB, and high radiation efficiency over the whole operating band. In addition, with frequency sweeping, the proposed antenna array radiation pattern is directive and offers beam steering at the desired angles, acting similarly as a leaky-wave antenna.

Les futurs systèmes de communication utiliseront des porteuses de fréquences d'ondes millimétriques (mm) (30 GHz - 300 GHz) et au-delà pour surmonter la saturation des différentes bandes de fréquence et atteindre des débits élevés. Les systèmes radio sur fibre (RoF) ont attiré l'attention grâce à leur faible coût et à la faible atténuation des fibres. Dans le cadre de cette thèse, différentes configurations et plusieurs conceptions de lasers ont été proposées pour la génération de fréquences radio par voie optique. L’amélioration du processus de fabrication de laser développé au laboratoire a permis d’obtenir des sources monomodes émettant autour du pic d'erbium (1534 nm) jusqu'à des puissances optiques de sortie de 41 mW avec une efficacité de 9,8%. Leurs largeurs de raie optiques ont été mesurée égales à 2 kHz et leur bruit d’intensité relatif (RIN) égal à -145 dB/Hz après 50 MHz. Avec ces lasers, des signaux électriques à des fréquences millimétriques de largeur de raie de quelques kHz ont été générés. Trois configurations hétérodynes ont été proposées pour améliorer la stabilité thermique des signaux générés afin de répondre aux normes IEEE. Des lasers co-intégrés ont été de plus fabriqués pour générer des porteuses comprises entre 5GHz et 165GHz. Une étude comparative a montré que les comportements des porteuses ainsi générées étaient indépendants de la fréquence produite. Enfin, les conceptions de structures intégrant coupleur, adaptation de modes et de plusieurs lasers sur verre pompés par une unique source ont été étudiées. En utilisant les porteuses générées par ces dernières réalisations, des transmissions de données ont été accomplies répondant aux normes requises. / Future communication systems will use millimeter-wave (mm) (30 GHz - 300 GHz) frequency carriers and beyond to overcome the saturation of different frequency bands and achieve high data rates. Radio-over-Fiber (RoF) systems have gained attention thanks to their low cost and low fiber attenuation. In this thesis, different configurations and several laser designs have been proposed for radio frequency generation by photonic based technique. The Improvement of the laser fabrication process developed in the laboratory resulted in single-mode sources emitting around the erbium peak (1534 nm) up to 41 mW optical output power with 9.8% efficiency. Their optical linewidths were measured equal to 2 kHz and their relative intensity noise (RIN) equal to -145 dB/Hz after 50 MHz. Using these lasers, electrical signals at millimeter frequencies having linewidths of few kHz have been generated Three heterodyning configurations have been proposed to improve the thermal stability of the generated signals in order to meet the IEEE standards. Co-integrated lasers have been further manufactured to generate carriers between 5GHz and 165GHz. A comparative study showed that the behaviors of the carriers thus generated were independent of the produced frequency. Finally, the designs of structures integrating coupler, tapers and several lasers on glass pumped by a single source were studied. By using the carriers generated by these latest implementations, data transmissions have been accomplished meeting the required standards.

Compressive Sensing (CS) is a recently proposed signal processing technique that has already found many applications in microwave and millimeter-wave imaging. CS theory guarantees that sparse or compressible signals can be recovered from far fewer measure- ments than those were traditionally thought necessary. This property coincides with the goal of personnel surveillance imaging whose priority is to reduce the scanning time as much as possible. Therefore, this thesis investigates the implementation of CS techniques in personnel surveillance imaging systems with different array configurations. The first key contribution is the comparative study of CS methods in a switched array imaging system. Specific attention has been paid to situations where the array element spacing does not satisfy the Nyquist criterion due to physical limitations. CS methods are divided into the Fourier transform based CS (FT-CS) method that relies on conventional FT and the direct CS (D-CS) method that directly utilizes classic CS formulations. The performance of the two CS methods is compared with the conventional FT method in terms of resolution, computational complexity, robustness to noise and under-sampling. Particularly, the resolving power of the two CS methods is studied under various cir- cumstances. Both numerical and experimental results demonstrate the superiority of CS methods. The FT-CS and D-CS methods are complementary techniques that can be used together for optimized efficiency and image reconstruction. The second contribution is a novel 3-D compressive phased array imaging algorithm based on a more general forward model that takes antenna factors into consideration. Imaging results in both range and cross-range dimensions show better performance than the conventional FT method. Furthermore, suggestions on how to design the sensing con- figurations for better CS reconstruction results are provided based on coherence analysis. This work further considers the near-field imaging with a near-field focusing technique integrated into the CS framework. Simulation results show better robustness against noise and interfering targets from the background. The third contribution presents the effects of array configurations on the performance of the D-CS method. Compressive MIMO array imaging is first derived and demonstrated with a cross-shaped MIMO array. The switched array, MIMO array and phased array are then investigated together under the compressive imaging framework. All three methods have similar resolution due to the same effective aperture. As an alternative scheme for the switched array, the MIMO array is able to achieve comparable performance with far fewer antenna elements. While all three array configurations are capable of imaging with sub-Nyquist element spacing, the phased array is more sensitive to this element spacing factor. Nevertheless, the phased array configuration achieves the best robustness against noise at the cost of higher computational complexity. The final contribution is the design of a novel low-cost beam-steering imaging system using a flat Luneburg lens. The idea is to use a switched array at the focal plane of the Luneburg lens to control the beam-steering. By sequentially exciting each element, the lens forms directive beams to scan the region of interest. The adoption of CS for image reconstruction enables high resolution and also data under-sampling. Numerical simulations based on mechanically scanned data are conducted to verify the proposed imaging system.

Demand for wireless network capacity keeps growing exponentially every year, as a result a 1000-fold increase in data traffic is projected over the next 10 years in the context of 5G wireless networks. Solutions for delivering the 1000-fold increase in capacity fall into three main categories: deploying smaller cells, allocating more spectrum and improving spectral efficiency of wireless systems. Smaller cells at RF frequencies (1-6GHz) are unlikely to deliver the demanded capacity increase. On the other hand, millimeter-wave spectrum (frequencies over 24GHz) offers wider, multi-GHz channel bandwidths, and therefore has gained significant research interest as one of the most promising solutions to address the data traffic demands of 5G. Another disruptive technology is full-duplex which breaks a century-old assumption in wireless communication, by simultaneous transmission and reception on the same frequency channel. In doing so, full-duplex offers many benefits for wireless networks, including an immediate spectral efficiency improvement in the physical layer. Although FD promises great benefits, self-interference from the transmitter to its own receiver poses a fundamental challenge. The self-interference can be more than a billion times stronger than the desired signal and must be suppressed below the receiver noise floor. In recent years, there has been some research efforts on fully-integrated full-duplex RF transceivers, but mm-wave fully-integrated full-duplex systems, are still in their infancy. This dissertation presents novel architectures, antenna and circuit techniques to merge two exciting technologies, mm-wave and full-duplex, which can potentially offer the dual benefits of wide bandwidths and improved spectral efficiency. To this end, two different antenna interfaces, namely a wideband reconfigurable T/R antenna pair with polarization-based antenna cancellation and an mm-wave fully-integrated magnetic-free non-reciprocal circulator, are presented. The polarization-based antenna cancellation is employed in conjunction with the RF and digital cancellation to design a 60GHz full-duplex 45nm SOI CMOS transceiver with nearly 80dB self-interference suppression. The concepts and prototypes presented in this dissertation have also profound implications for emerging applications such as vehicular radars, 5G small-cell base-stations and virtual reality.

Chen, Kejian. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 156-164). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.