A gearbox simulator is developed as platform for testing and demonstrating purposes. For that, a rig composed by a mechanical system and electronic equipment for controlling two servomotors is used. The objective of this equipment is to simulate the forces that the gearbox would transmit to the gear lever when the gear change operation is being carried-out. To reach this goal, a program is developed in LabVIEW to command the servomotors, emulating the forces by controlling the output torque and transmitting them to the gear stick as it would be in a real gearbox, taking into account real force-angle curves. Also, a graphical user interface is developed in order to monitor the simulator performance ad ease the way the data is chosen and introduced into the software.As seen in the experiment results, the graphs present similarities in shape and magnitude, which is important in regards of feeling; a better performance could be reach suppressing some system constraints.

A new active LO phase shifter was introduced and implemented in a 2x2 wide band MIMO receiver. The chip was designed with STMicroelectronics 90nm technology. The main advantages of the proposed phase shifter over previous works included a wide band range, high resolution and small area. The phase shifter is based on the dependency of the inverter propagation delay on the load capacitance. Simply, by changing the load capacitance of an inverter, a different propagation delay is generated. A number of these controllable delay cells are cascaded to provide the required phase-shift. In order for the delay cells to reduce the required amount of phase-shifting the I&Q swap circuit is introduced. The I&Q swap circuitry reduces the phase-shifting by one fourth of the original range. The wide band phase shifter is suitable for multi-standard radios, since just one phase shifter is needed to support all standards. This capability of the phase shifter could potentially reduce the size of the die and simplify the design. The measurement shows that the phase shifter is able to provide 360˚ of phase-shifting at the output base band signal when the LO is varying from 1.5GHz to 6GHz. A wider range of the phase shifter is achievable by reducing the capacitance load and increasing the number of cascaded delay cells. The proposed phase shifter is capable of achieving a very high resolution. The resolution of the phase shifter is a function of the inverter current capability and the load capacitance. The measurements show the average resolution of the proposed phase shifter is about 1.32ps. Passive components usually take up a large area on the chip. A MOS capacitor is used as the load to reduce the area of the proposed phase shifter. A method is proposed to improve the phase shifter stability over the temperature and process variations. This method is based on the fact that the propagation delay of an inverter is inversely proportional to the power supply. Therefore, the phase shifters’ power supply must be varied to maintain a relatively constant phase shifter resolution over the temperature and process variations.

A new active LO phase shifter was introduced and implemented in a 2x2 wide band MIMO receiver. The chip was designed with STMicroelectronics 90nm technology. The main advantages of the proposed phase shifter over previous works included a wide band range, high resolution and small area. The phase shifter is based on the dependency of the inverter propagation delay on the load capacitance. Simply, by changing the load capacitance of an inverter, a different propagation delay is generated. A number of these controllable delay cells are cascaded to provide the required phase-shift. In order for the delay cells to reduce the required amount of phase-shifting the I&Q swap circuit is introduced. The I&Q swap circuitry reduces the phase-shifting by one fourth of the original range. The wide band phase shifter is suitable for multi-standard radios, since just one phase shifter is needed to support all standards. This capability of the phase shifter could potentially reduce the size of the die and simplify the design. The measurement shows that the phase shifter is able to provide 360˚ of phase-shifting at the output base band signal when the LO is varying from 1.5GHz to 6GHz. A wider range of the phase shifter is achievable by reducing the capacitance load and increasing the number of cascaded delay cells. The proposed phase shifter is capable of achieving a very high resolution. The resolution of the phase shifter is a function of the inverter current capability and the load capacitance. The measurements show the average resolution of the proposed phase shifter is about 1.32ps. Passive components usually take up a large area on the chip. A MOS capacitor is used as the load to reduce the area of the proposed phase shifter. A method is proposed to improve the phase shifter stability over the temperature and process variations. This method is based on the fact that the propagation delay of an inverter is inversely proportional to the power supply. Therefore, the phase shifters’ power supply must be varied to maintain a relatively constant phase shifter resolution over the temperature and process variations.

Subcontractors in the automotive industry, have a lot of pressure to bring down costs and to deliver products that are effective, optimized and qualitative. The main purpose of this study is to guide and conduct the first step in the project Standard Building Blocks with modular design, within the business area, manual shifter. The project is directly presented by Kongsberg Automotive, a well-known subcontractor of the automotive industry. The aim of the project is to develop a standard manual shifter with modular design containing standard building blocks. Five different components have been selected in the manual shifter for this study. In each component, there are several concepts on how to design that specific component. The target of the study is to evaluate and analyze the concepts and based on the results decide which of the concepts to be standard building blocks. The study identifies, evaluates and analyses the consequences of the project Standard Building Blocks for the chosen concepts. The results from the study show that some concepts have a greater tendency to form standard building blocks when compared to others. In the study it was proven that non-measurable values have the same significance as the measured values. The results also show that the most suitable concepts depends on the customers’ specifications. The consequence analysis presented many consequences of what an implementation of standard building blocks may imply, from the advantages to possible risk elements. Through the consequence analysis the studied company can become more prepared for the future. / Underleverantörerna inom fordonsindustrin har en stor press när det kommer till hålla nere kostnader och att leverera effektiva, optimerade och kvalitativa produkter. Huvudsyftet med studien är att guida och genomföra det första steget i projektet Standard Building Blocks med modulär design, inom affärsområdet, manuella växelreglage. Projektet är direkt framtaget av Kongsberg Automotive, en välkänd underleverantör inom fordonsindustrin. Målet med projektet är att utveckla en standard manuell växelreglage med modulär design innehållande standard building blocks. Fem olika komponenter har valts ut i den manuell växelreglaget för studien. För varje komponent finns det flera koncept hur den specifika komponenten kan designas. Målet med studien är att utvärdera och analysera koncepten och utifrån resultatet avgöra vilka av koncepten som kan bilda standard building blocks. Studien identifierar, utvärderar och analyserar konsekvenser av projektet Standard Building Blocks för de valda koncepten. Resultatet från studien visade att vissa koncept har en större tendens att bilda standard building blocks än andra. I studien blev det bevisat att icke-mätbara värden har lika stor betydelse som uppmätta värdena. Resultatet visade också att de mest lämpade koncepten beror på kundens specifikationer. Konsekvensen analysen presenter många konsekvenser av vad en implementation av standard building blocks kan innebära, från fördelar till eventuella riskfaktorer. Genom konsekvensanalysen kan det studerade företaget bli mer förberedda för framtiden.

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The first topic of this thesis proposes a digital negative phase shifter circuit which generates a clock with adjustable negative delays (phase shift) in order to avoid multi-locking hazards. Arbitrary negative phase can be generated by using multiplexers and voltage variable delay cells to select the required phase shift. The proposed design is implemented by 0.35 um CMOS 1P4M technology. A single-shot locking method is adopted to reduce the locking time. Most important of all, the negative phase shifter is predictable and adjustable. The simulation results show that the accuracy of the proposed design is better than 6%. The second topic is to describe a 10-bit, 80 MS/s analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for digital video broadcasting over terrestrial (DVB-T) receivers. The ADC is based on a four-channel parallel pipeline architecture which employs dynamic comparators and switch-capacitance sample-and-hold circuit to achieve high speed operation and low power consumption. Simulation results using a TSMC 0.35um 2P4M process show that the proposed ADC achieves 56dB spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) and 9.01-bit ENOB.

This research aims to design and implement GaAs HBT MMICs for the two crucial components in W-CDMA transmitters, quadrature modulator and upconverter, with thorough evaluation of the package and PCB effects. To construct a strong theoretical foundation, the small-signal modeling of HBTs and the EM-characterization of package and PCB interconnects are intensively studied. In this dissertation, a novel extrinsic-inductance independent approach is developed for direct extraction of the intrinsic elements in a hybrid-pi equivalent circuit of HBTs. The interconnects of leadless RFIC packages and test PCBs are investigated using the 3-D EM simulation tools and transformed into the equivalent circuits for co-analysis with the designed HBT MMICs. The first HBT MMIC design is a W-CDMA direct-conversion quadrature modulator incorporating a new 90 degrees phase shifter. Although the proposed 90 degrees phase shifter has a remarkable advantage over the others in implementation loss, it is rather susceptible to the package and PCB effects, resulting in a moderate degradation of EVM. The second HBT MMIC design is a W-CDMA upconverter incorporating a popular micromixer. Although the micromixer-based upconverter consumes much less current at low output powers to achieve the same high linearity when compared to a Gilbert mixer-based design, it is quite susceptible to the package and PCB effects, causing a significant degradation in ACPR. Comparison between theory and measurement shows good agreement in evaluating the influences of package and PCB interconnects on both HBT MMICs.

As the application of the consuming electronic products being used extensively, more and more functions can be worked on the same chip. Different function blocks may need different supply voltage. Considering of power consumption, circuit operated at low voltage and low current can achieve power reduction. Due to the energy crisis nowadays, plenty of products begin to focus on the green power. The main advantage of green power is saving power, which will not affect the efficiency. In addition, while the CMOS technology process evolves all the time, the stability of the operation voltage needs to be reduced by the advancement. Thus, the power management in a 3D graphic chip application is going to be introduced in this thesis. Utilizing the linear regulator to reduce the DC to 1.2, 1.1, 1.0, 0.9 and 0.8 V from 3.3V, and support a stable voltage for core circuits and I/O circuits. With the emphasis on the circuit efficiency is affected by power management, the level shifter to embed normal useful digital logic is also investigated. When using in the logic gates, it can reduce power consumption simultaneously. Therefore, it is important to adopt power IC in the future.

Recent developments in the area of microfabrication technologies, has enabled the fabrication of many radio frequency/microwave components with better performance and lower cost than possible with semiconductor based fabrication technology. Many of these microfabricated RF components such as switches and phase shifters, popularly known as RF MEMS, are aimed at reducing the insertion loss and improving other performance parameters such as linearity. For these devices size miniaturization is not necessarily important, as in practical subsystems, these components are integrated with RF front-ends on a laminate. This thesis deals with concepts of a low cost passive phase shifter fabricated in-situ on a microwave laminate. The operation of this Mesoscale Electrostatically actuated Phase shifter on microwave Laminate (MEPL) is similar to that of a micromachined distributed MEMS transmission line (DMTL) phase shifter. In spite of advantages of low losses, wide bandwidth, low DC power consumption and high linearity over semiconductor/MMIC technology, microfabricated phase shifters are often not used in field because of issues related to fabrication reliability, packaging and integration. On the other hand, the proposed MEPL will have all the advantages of conventional MEMS phase shifters with additional benefit of lower cost. Furthermore, these are integrable to form a monolithic phased array. A MEPL phase shifter of 50-bridges periodically distributed on the co-planar waveguide (CPW) transmission line is demonstrated in this thesis. MEMS air bridges are electrostatically actuated to vary the capacitance of the transmission line, which changes the phase velocity of the propagation RF signal, consequently phase at the output port. The realized MEPL is characterized for electromagnetic as well as electromechanical performance. The electromechanical characterization of this device is performed using a Laser Doppler Vibrometer (LDV). The measured data showed good agreement with the analytical data.. Major application of a phase shifter is in a phased array antenna system. MEPL is particularly suited for a monolithic phase array antenna. The proposed monolithic phased array antenna system fabrication approach utilizes extremely simple and economical modern printed circuit board technology to pattern the conventional microwave laminate and copper foil. A complete monolithic phased array antenna system is fabricated on a microwave laminate using an embedded phase shifter operating with electrostatic principles. Other components such as DC block and bias tee are integrated into the CPW-microstrip transitions to optimize the space and performance. Integrated phased array antenna is fabricated and tested to demonstrate the beam steering capability. Measured S11 is better than -15dB at the operating frequency of 9.8GHz. The beam steering capability is shown as proof of concept by showing the beam scan angle of 10deg with bias voltage of 125V. The mesoscale phase shifter demonstrated in this thesis has several advantages compared to micromachined phase shifters. The proposed fabrication approach does not use metal deposition/patterning process, which removes the need of high cost clean room and sophisticated films deposition equipments. Secondly, as there are no thin films used, stiction is not expected on phase shifters fabricated with this approach. Since this approach uses thicker metal films, the power handling capability is expected to be significantly higher than micromachined phase shifters. Since conventional phased array antenna system components are fabricated on a microwave laminate, micro machined phase shifters realized on semiconductor substrates are required to be packaged separately before integrating with such phased array circuits. Packaging of the micro-machined RF-MEMS/MEMS devices is still a major issue and contributes to a substantial part of the total cost. Unlike micromachined phase shifters which are required to be packaged and then embedded in phased array applications, device presented in this thesis is packaged in-situ. Compared to similar monolithic phased array antenna reported on silicon substrate which are limited by wafer size, these arrays can be easily extended for larger arrays on microwave laminate as these are available in large size. To summarize, the proposed fabrication approach for phase shifters overcomes many limitations of micromachined components for microwave applications while retaining most of their advantages compared to other existing approaches based on ferrites or semiconductor technologies.