Ultrawideband (UWB) wireless systems employ signals with bandwidths in excess of 500 MHz or with relative bandwidth more than 20%. The radiated signals have low power spectral density. A decade ago, UWB wireless systems were deemed to be the technology that will deliver 'Gigabit-wireless' for short range communications. However, the performance of current systems is significantly below the initial expectations. This thesis explores the UWB wireless channel and shows how its properties limit the performance of current UWB systems. Furthermore, it is shown that if the knowledge of the channel is fully exploited a significant performance improvement of UWB systems can be achieved. The thesis begins with exploration of the channel properties. Unlike previous work, that has investigated either the 'classical narrowband' channel with bandwidth <100 MHz or the UWB channel with bandwidth >1 GHz, this work studies the transition between the narrowband channels with bandwidth of 1 MHz to the extremely wide band channels with bandwidths of up to 10 GHz. The thesis concludes that for signals with bandwidth <1 GHz UWB antennas and antenna arrays can be described by the classical means of gain and array factor, i.e. they treat such signals as 'narrowband'. In contrast, wireless propagation for signals with bandwidth > 100 MHz has properties 'like UWB channels' with bandwidths in the GHz range. Additionally, the thesis suggests a correction to the IEEE802.15.4a model for channel impulse response because as will be shown in the thesis many multi paths in the model are manifes- tations of the antenna impulse response. Hence multiple multipaths in the IEEE802.15.4a model actually represent a single multipath component. This reduces the number of multipath components in the model by approximately factor of five. The understanding of the transition between narrowband and ultrawideband channel is used to improve the spectral efficiency of impulse radio systems which traditionally use signals with bandwidth> 1 GHz. It is shown that the optimum signal bandwidth for impulse radio systems is in the range 150-450 MHz. Such systems balance the robustness against frequency selective fading with the reduction of duty cycle. Hence, the data-rate of impulse radio systems can be significantly improved. The frequency selective fading is shown to be the main limiting factor for the performance of the commercial UWB WiMedia systems with OFDM. It is shown that adaptive loading of OFDM sub carriers , which is compatible with the frequency selectivity of the channel, is more suitable for UWB OFDM systems than the use of strong Forward-Error-Correction measures. The introduction of the adaptive OFDM is not a significant change to the design of the scheme because the commercial WiMedia standard already foresees pilot OFDM symbols for channel estimation. The adaptive OFDM for UWB has already been considered by some authors. Unlike previous works, this thesis explores the performance of such a system in a large number of measured wireless channels. Finally, the thesis studies the MIMO techniques for UWB systems. Suitable schemes for fixed and adaptive OFDM are discussed. A realistic simulation using measured wireless channel shows that a 4x 1 system with a low complexity beam-steering and adaptive OFDM can deliver a data-rate of 400 Mbps over a range of 9 m. This performance is for a system with bandwidth 528 MHz (like in the WiMedia standard). A further increase can be achieved with the increase of the system's bandwidth.

The communication industry leverages technical advancements in various domains, such as semiconductors, optics, signal processing, and integrated circuits, leading to remarkable evolution over the last decades. This progress paves the way for ever-expanding networks and systems that demand more information capacity, which results in exponential data growth. Unique wireless concepts and technologies are emerging to enable next-generation communication. This dissertation explores the techniques and architectures to realize massive MIMO, extreme bandwidths through channel aggregation, TeraHertz band utilization, and the use of III-V technologies to enhance performance via heterogeneous integration, ultimately maintaining ubiquitous connectivity. The first chapter discusses the various recent research trends in communication technologies: the allocation of millimeter-wave frequencies to benefit from the broad available spectrum, 2D scalability to enhance system performance and overcome link budget requirements, MIMO, and channel aggregation concepts to extend data capacity, heterogeneous integration to exploit benefits of various technologies, transitioning to THz region to improve spectrum efficiencies and diversify applications. The key insight of this dissertation is that we implement distinct system/architecture-level solutions to achieve target data rates for the continuation of the advancements in communication technologies. The first project in this thesis presents a MIMO receiver array that utilizes a simplified single-wire interface for IF/LO signals that overcomes the high-frequency input/output distribution complexity for large-scale systems. Code-domain multiplexing is performed on the single-wire interface to preserve and transfer individual information of all channels. The four-channel receiver prototype that operates at 28GHz and achieves >20dB channel-to-channel isolation is presented. Digital beamforming and MIMO capability of the array have been demonstrated. The later chapter of this dissertation discusses the fundamental limitation of code-domain multiplexing, the trade-off between isolation and interface bandwidth, and explains our novel frequency-domain multiplexing approach. A harmonic rejection mixer has been used to generate the required multiple LO tones to de-multiplex individual channel signals simultaneously. A 60GHz four-element MIMO transmitter prototype is presented, and its functionalities are illus- trated. The prototype achieves >30dB channel-to-channel isolation for an overall bandwidth of 10GHz, supports 64QAM modulated signals, and is capable of performing MIMO beamforming. Next, benefiting from our research experience on FDM and HRM, we proposed a frequency- interleaving architecture for wideband channel aggregated systems. We divided the total IF band- width into four sub-channels and individually up/down-converted them to the baseband, alleviating the requirements of Analog-to-Digital/Digital-to-Analog Converters. HRM is utilized to generate multiple LO frequencies, as in the FDM-based transmitter work. The prototype system comprises two baseband channelizer ICs (TX/RX) and two mm-wave beamformer ICs (TX/RX), where channelizers perform FI aggregation and despread IF signals, and beamformers are responsible for beam steering and tapering. The four-channel transceiver chipset operates at 60GHz, provides >25dB isolation for an overall IF bandwidth of 8GHz, and supports 64QAM modulated signals. The next section of the dissertation presents a wideband sub-THz transceiver phased array system with SWI. We propose a D-band scalable 16-element transceiver system with novel front- end block designs to satisfy link budget requirements and enable high data rates and complex modulation data transfer. The prototype consists of one phased array transmitter and one phased array receiver. Simulated performance shows that the receiver system has ∼34dB gain, -30dBmIP1dB with a minimum 5.4dB NF. While, transmitter achieves ∼34dB gain with a 9dBm OP1dB. The last chapter looks beyond CMOS technology and presents front-end blocks at III-V technologies. Two circulator prototype designs with different architectures are implemented using GaN technology. Better linearity performance is targeted by leveraging heterogeneous integration, using GaN devices for the core and CMOS circuitry for clock generation. In addition, a future direction for THz systems, GaN-assisted beamformer architecture, is presented.