ETD

Archivio digitale delle tesi discusse presso l'Università di Pisa

Tesi etd-11202008-103522


Tipo di tesi
Tesi di laurea specialistica
Autore
STABILE, PIERPAOLO
URN
etd-11202008-103522
Titolo
A LOW PHASE NOISE 20-GHz LC-VCO IN CMOS 65nm FOR MILLIMETER WAVE FRONT-ENDS
Dipartimento
INGEGNERIA
Corso di studi
INGEGNERIA ELETTRONICA
Relatori
Relatore Dott. Zito, Domenico
Relatore Ing. Pepe, Domenico
Parole chiave
  • CMOS
  • millimiter-waves
  • phase noise
  • voltage controlled oscillator
  • RFICs
  • 60-GHz WLAN
Data inizio appello
05/12/2008
Consultabilità
Non consultabile
Data di rilascio
05/12/2048
Riassunto
Millimeter waves (mm-wave) can be defined in a very broad term as electromagnetic spectrum that spans between 30GHz to 300 GHz, which corresponds to wavelengths from 10mm to 1mm.

Millimeter waves will be a next generation wireless technology that can provide up to multi Giga Bit per seconds (Gbps) wireless connectivity for short distances. The data rate is expected to be 40-100 times faster than today's wireless LAN technologies.
Mass-market applications as Wireless Video Area Network (WVAN) for HDTV signals at 60GHz, automotive radar and active imaging systems at 80GHz are just some of the possible applications for mm-waves.

The most relevant challenge for the success of these new class of applications is related with the opportunity of system-on-chip integration in a standard silicon technology, especially CMOS.

However, in spite of the latest advance in CMOS technology, the integration into a single chip is an extremely challenging topic of the current research, especially as far as gain and noise requirements are concerned.

It is well known that voltage controlled oscillator are the most critical building blocks in high performance Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFICs), especially at the millimeter-waves frequency range. In fact, the succes in the transceiver implementation depends relevantly from the design of such a circuit.

The key performance of VCOs is the spectral purity of their output frequency measured in terms of phase noise. Phase noise evaluates the random variation of the phase of the periodical signal produced by a VCO.

This thesis has dealt with the design of a novel low phase noise LC voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) implemented according to a novel topology recently proposed in the literature. In particular, a 20-GHz LC-VCO has been designed in 65nm CMOS process by ST-Microelectronics for mm-wave applications at 60 GHz. A comparative analysis has shown that the new circuit topology allows a phase noise reduction close to 10 dBc/Hz with respect to an equivalent-like traditional topology at 20 GHz.
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