Abstract This thesis studies the level of performance achievable using today's standard IC processes in the integrated RF subcircuits of the modern GSM base station. The thesis concentrates on those circuit functions, i.e. I/Q modulators, variable gain amplifiers and frequency synthesizers, most relevant for integration in the base station environment as pinpointed by studying the receiver/transmitter architectures available today. Several RF integrated circuits have been designed, fabricated and their level of performance measured. All main circuits were fabricated in a standard double-metal double-poly 1.2 and 0.8 μm BiCMOS process. Key circuit structures and their measured properties are: 90° phase shifter with ±1° phase error with VCC = 4.5…5.5 V and T = -10…+85 °C, I/Q modulator suitable for operation at output frequencies from 100 MHz to 1 GHz and baseband frequencies from 60 to 500 kHz (2.0 mm × 2.0 mm, 100 mA, 5.0 V) with LO suppression of 38 dBc and image rejection of 41 dBc, temperature compensated DC to 1.5 GHz variable gain amplifier (1.15 mm × 2.00 mm, 100 mA, 5.0 V) with a linear 50 dB gain adjustment range, maximum gain of 18.5 dB and gain variation of 1 dB up to 700 MHz over the whole operating conditions range of VCC = 4.5…5.5 V and T = -10…+85 °C, a complete bipolar semicustom synthesizer (90…122 mA, 5.0 V) and two complete full-custom BiCMOS synthesizer chips including all building blocks of a PLL-based synthesizer except for the voltage controlled oscillator and the loop filter. The synthesizers include circuit structures such as ∼2 GHz multi-modulus divider and low-noise programmable phase detector/charge pump (18.7 pA/√Hz at Iout = 500 μA) and have an exemplar phase noise performance of -110 dBc/Hz at 200 kHz offset. One of the main problems of the integer-N PLL based synthesizer when used in a multichannel telecommunications system is the level of spurious signals at the output, when the synthesizer is optimised for fast frequency switching. Therefore, a method using only two current pulses to make the frequency step response of the loop faster, thus allowing a narrower loop bandwidth to be used for additional spur suppression, is proposed. The operation of the proposed speed-up method is analysed mathematically and verified by measurements of an existing RF-IC synthesizer operating at 800 MHz. Measurements show that simple current pulses can be used to speed up the channel switching of a practical RF synthesizer having a frequency step time in the tens of μs range. In the example, a 7.65 MHz frequency step was made seven times faster using the proposed method.

Cette thèse discute le problème de test de production en grand volume des circuits radio-fréquences (RF) et à ondes millimétriques (mm-wave). Le test des fonctionnalités RF et à ondes millimétriques est très onéreux. Le test intégré est une alternative prometteuse pour faciliter la procédure et réduire les couts, mais il est difficile à mettre en œuvre car il ne faut en aucun cas qu'il réduit la performance du circuit sous test (CUT). Dans cette thèse, nous étudions une technique du test intégré qui repose sur l'utilisation de capteurs non-intrusifs qui prend en compte la variabilité du procédé de fabrication. Cette technique est extrêmement intéressante pour les concepteurs des circuits RF et mm-wave car il leur permet de dissocier le test de la conception. Les capteurs non-intrusifs sont constitués d'étages analogiques triviaux et de composants simples qui sont copiés de la topologie du CUT et sont placés sur la puce à proximité du CUT. Ils offrent simplement une "image" des variations du procédé de fabrication, ce qui leur permet de suivre les variations de performance du CUT. En substance, cette technique tire parti des phénomènes non désirés de variabilité de procédé de fabrication. Le paradigme du test alternatif est utilisé pour estimer les performances du CUT à partir des mesures des capteurs non intrusifs, afin de remplacer les tests standards qui mesurent les performances directement. Ce principe de test est appliqué à deux différents CUTs, nommément un amplificateur à bas bruit à 2.4GHz réalisé en CMOS 65nm et un amplificateur à bas bruit large bande à 60GHz réalisé en CMOS 65nm. Nous démontrons qu'en ajoutant quelques capteurs non-intrusifs sur la puce, qui n'engendrent pratiquement pas de surcout de surface, et en obtenant de ces capteurs non-intrusifs certaines mesures dans le domaine continu et à basse fréquence, nous sommes capable de suivre les variations de toutes les performances du CUT avec une erreur de prédiction moyenne inférieure à l’écart-type de la performance, et une erreur de prédiction maximum qui est inférieure ou au moins comparable aux erreurs de mesure dans un équipement de test automatisé conventionnel. / This thesis addresses the high-volume production test problem for RF and millimeter-wave (mm-wave) circuits. Testing the RF/mm-wave functions of systems-on-chip (SoCs) incurs a very high cost. Built-in test is a promising alternative to facilitate testing and reduce costs, but it is challenging since it should by no means degrade the performance of the Circuit Under Test (CUT). In this work, we study a built-in test technique which is based on non-intrusive variation-aware sensors. The non-intrusive property is very appealing for designers since the sensors are totally transparent to the design and, thereby, the test is completely dissociated from the design. The non-intrusive sensors are dummy analog stages and single layout components that are copied from the topology of the CUT and are placed on the die in close physical proximity to the CUT. They simply offer an “image” of process variations and by virtue of this they are capable of tracking variations in the performances of the CUT. In essence, the technique capitalizes on the undesired phenomenon of process variations. The alternate test paradigm is employed to map the outputs of the non-intrusive sensors to the performances of the CUT, in order to replace the standard tests for measuring the performances directly. The proposed test idea is applied to two different CUTs, namely a 2.4GHz CMOS 65nm inductive degenerated Low-Noise Amplifier (LNA) and a wide-band mm-wave 60GHz CMOS 65nm 3-stage LNA. We demonstrate that by adding on-chip a few non-intrusive sensors of practically zero area-overhead and by obtaining on these non-intrusive sensors DC or low-frequency measurements, we are able to track variations in all performances of the CUT with an average prediction error lower than one standard deviation of the performance and a maximum prediction error that is lower or at least comparable to the measurement and repeatability errors in a conventional Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) environment.

Cette thèse démontre la faisabilité de l'utilisation de la technologie Nitrure de Gallium (GaN) dans les systèmes RF / micro-ondes reconfigurables. Les principales caractéristiques de ce type de technologie des semi-conducteurs se résident dans ses capacités de supporter des puissances élevées avec un rendement aussi élevé. En outre, la technologie GaN est un candidat très prometteur pour la réalisation des applications haute puissance/haute fréquence. Le travail de cette thèse est divisé en deux parties principales. La première est consacrée au développement, à l’analyse et à la caractérisation en DC et en RF jusqu'à 20 GHz des circuits actifs réalisés à base de la technologie GaN, tels que les diodes varicap et les commutateurs. Les diodes varicap fabriquées ont été modélisées en petit et grand signal par des équations analytiques contenant des coefficients empiriques ainsi un modèle en circuit a été développé, tandis aux commutateurs, un modèle de circuit en petit signal a été proposé. Ces composants actifs ont été réalisés en utilisant les processus GaN HEMTs de fabrication offerts par le Conseil National de Recherches du Canada (CNRC). La deuxième partie aborde les aspects de l'intégration de ces dispositif actifs GaN et de la conception des circuits reconfigurables proposés, tels que déphaseur reconfigurable, -3dB 90° coupleur hybride reconfigurable, oscillateur accordable en fréquence, commutation de faisceau et accordabilité en fréquence d’un réseau d'antennes patch tout en utilisant ces diodes varicap et commutateur GaN développées au fil de cette thèse. A travers cette thèse, l'utilisation de la technologie GaN pour la conception des designs RF reconfigurables en fréquence pour les applications fonctionnant au-dessous de 10 GHz a été démontrée. / This thesis demonstrates the feasibility of using the Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology in reconfigurable RF/microwave systems. The main features of this type of semiconductor technology being its high power with high efficiency. In addition, GaN technology is a very promising candidate for realizing high power/high frequency applications. The thesis work is divided in two main parts. The first one is devoted to active GaN devices, such as varactor diodes and switches, development, analyze and characterization via DC and RF up to 20 GHz. The fabricated varactor were modeled by analytic equations containing empirical coefficients and also a physic circuit model was developed, while for the switches only a small signal physic circuit model was proposed. These GaN devices was manufactured by using the Canadian National Research Council (NRC) GaN HEMTs processes. The second part addresses the integration and design aspects of the reconfigurable proposed circuits, such as tunable phase shifter, reconfigurable 3-dB 90° hybrid coupler, tunable frequency oscillator, beam switching antenna array and matching reconfigurable patch antenna based on these developed GaN varactors and switches devices. The use of GaN on highly efficient reconfigurable designs for broadband RF/microwave applications operating below 10 GHz was demonstrated.

Recent advances in metamaterials research has enabled the development of highly sensitive near-field microwave sensors with unprecedented sensitivity. In this work, we take advantage of the increase in the sensitivity to produce a compact, lightweight, affordable, and accurate measurement system for the applications of microwave imaging and material characterization. This sensitivity enhancement due to the inclusion of metamaterials opens the door for the use of inexpensive microwave components and circuits such as direct detectors while leveraging the high sensitivity of the metamaterial probe to deliver an overall accurate measurement system comparable to that of a traditional probe used in conjunction with a vector network analyzer. The sensor developed is composed of a metamaterial sensor with an RF direct detection circuit. In this work, two prototype measurement systems have been designed and tested. Measurement of small cracks in conductors and material characterization using the proposed system were performed. The results from the newly developed sensors were compared with the results from vector network analyzer measurements. Good agreement was obtained. The feasibility of a compact, lightweight, affordable, and accurate system has been demonstrated by using the developed prototypes.

The objective of this research is to understand the design and performance of state-of-the-art silicon-germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS high-frequency circuits for phased- array radar and wireless communication systems operating in extreme environment conditions. This work investigates the performance of RF circuits over a wide- temperature and exposure to a radiation intensive environment. The design and characterization of a fully integrated transmit/receive (T/R) module and integra- tion onto a multi-element antenna array is presented. In addition, individual circuit blocks are characterized in these extreme environments.

Recent advances in metamaterials research has enabled the development of highly sensitive near-field microwave sensors with unprecedented sensitivity. In this work, we take advantage of the increase in the sensitivity to produce a compact, lightweight, affordable, and accurate measurement system for the applications of microwave imaging and material characterization. This sensitivity enhancement due to the inclusion of metamaterials opens the door for the use of inexpensive microwave components and circuits such as direct detectors while leveraging the high sensitivity of the metamaterial probe to deliver an overall accurate measurement system comparable to that of a traditional probe used in conjunction with a vector network analyzer. The sensor developed is composed of a metamaterial sensor with an RF direct detection circuit. In this work, two prototype measurement systems have been designed and tested. Measurement of small cracks in conductors and material characterization using the proposed system were performed. The results from the newly developed sensors were compared with the results from vector network analyzer measurements. Good agreement was obtained. The feasibility of a compact, lightweight, affordable, and accurate system has been demonstrated by using the developed prototypes.

This thesis proposes a multifaceted production test and post-silicon yield enhancement framework for RF systems. The three main components of the proposed framework are the design, production test, and post-test phase of the overall integrated circuit (IC) development cycle. First, a circuit-sizing method is presented for incorporating test considerations into algorithms for automatic circuit synthesis/device resizing. The sizing problem is solved by using a cost metric that can be incorporated at minimal computational cost into existing optimization tools for manufacturing yield enhancement. Along with the circuit-sizing method introduced in the design phase, a low-cost test and diagnosis method is presented for multi-parametric faults in wireless systems. This test and diagnosis method allows accurate prediction of the end-to-end specifications as well as for the specifications of all the embedded modules. The procedure is based on application of optimized test stimulus and the use of a simple diode-based envelope detector to extract the transient test response envelope at RF signal nodes. This eliminates the need to make RF measurements using expensive standard testers. To further improve the parametric yield of RF circuits, a performance drift-aware adaptation scheme is proposed that automatically compensates for the loss of circuit performance in the presence of process variations. This work includes a diagnosis algorithm to identify faulty circuits within the system and a compensation process that adjusts tunable components to reduce the effects of performance variations. As a result, all the mentioned components contribute to producing a low-cost production test and to enhancing post-silicon parametric yield.

One of the major factors in RF circuit design is the ability to predict the performance of these circuits in the presence of uncertainty in the key design parameters. This is referred to as uncertainty quantification in the mathematical literature. Uncertainty about the key design parameters arises mainly from the difficulty of controlling the physical or geometrical features of the underlying design, especially at the nanometer level. With the constant trend to scale down the process feature size, uncertainty quantification becomes crucial in shortening the design time. This thesis presents a new approach to statistically characterize the variability of the Harmonic Balance analysis and its application to Intermodulation distortion analysis in the presence of uncertainty in the design parameters. The new approach is based on the concept of Polynomial Chaos (PC) and Stochastic Galerkin (SG) methods. However, unlike the traditional PC, the proposed approach adopts a new mathematical formulation that decouples the Polynomial Chaos problem into several problems whose sizes are equal to the size of the original Harmonic Balance problem. The proposed algorithm produces significant CPU savings with equivalent accuracy to traditional Monte Carlo and standard PC approaches.

A sensor node 'AccuMicroMotion' is proposed that has the ability to detect motion in 6 degrees of freedom for the application of physiological activity monitoring. It is expected to be light weight, low power, small and cheap. The sensor node may collect and transmit 3 axes of acceleration and 3 axes of angular rotation signals from MEMS transducers wirelessly to a nearby base station while attached to or implanted in human body. This dissertation proposes a wireless electronic system-on-a-single-chip to implement the sensor in a traditional CMOS process. The system is low power and may operate 50 hours from a single coin cell battery. A CMOS readout circuit, an analog to digital converter and a wireless transmitter is designed to implement the proposed system. In the architecture of the 'AccuMicroMotion' system, the readout circuit uses chopper stabilization technique and can resolve DC to 1 KHz and 200 nV signals from MEMS transducers. The base band signal is digitized using a 10-bit successive approximation register analog to digital converter. Digitized outputs from up to nine transducers can be combined in a parallel to serial converter for transmission by a 900 MHz RF transmitter that operates in amplitude shift keying modulation technique. The transmitter delivers a 2.2 mW power to a 50 Ù antenna. The system consumes an average current of 4.8 mA from a 3V supply when 6 sensors are in operation and provides an overall 60 dB dynamic range. Furthermore, in this dissertation, a methodology is developed that applies accelerated electrical stress on MOS devices to extract BSIM3 models and RF parameters through measurements to perform comprehensive study, analysis and modeling of several analog and RF circuits under hot carrier and breakdown degradation.

The research presented in this thesis leverages silicon-germanium (SiGe) heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology to develop microwave front-end electronics for active phased-array antennas. The highly integrated electronics will reduce costs and improve the feasibility of snow measurements from airborne and space-borne platforms. Chapter 1 presents the motivation of this research, focusing on the technological needs of snow measurement missions. The fundamentals and benefits of SiGe HBTs and phased-array antennas for these missions are discussed as well. Chapter 2 discusses SiGe power amplifier design considerations for radar systems. Basic power amplifier design concepts, power limitations in SiGe HBTs, and techniques for increasing the output power of SiGe HBT PAs are reviewed. Chapter 3 presents the design and characterization of a robust medium power X-band SiGe power amplifier for integration into a SiGe transmit/receive module. The PA design process applies the concepts presented in Chapter 2. A detailed investigation into measurement-to-simulation discrepancies is outlined as well. Chapter 4 discusses the development and characterization of a single-chip X-band SiGe T/R module for integration into a very thin, lightweight active phased array antenna panel. The system-on-package antenna combines the high performance and integration potential of SiGe technologies with advanced substrates and packaging techniques to develop a high performance scalable antenna panel using relatively low-cost materials and silicon-based electronics. The antenna panel presented in this chapter will enable airborne SCLP measurements and advance the technology towards an eventual space-based SCLP measurement instrument that will satisfy a critical Earth science need. Finally, Chapter 5 provides concluding remarks and discusses future research directions.