Superconducting digital technology has made rapid strides in recent years. Energy-efficient single flux quantum (SFQ) circuits have been proposed so far and complicated circuits like a microprocessor have been demonstrated at several tens of GHz. For example, our group successfully demonstrated 100 GHz operation of a bit-serial microprocessor based on the multiple-voltage SFQ (MV-SFQ) circuit. In addition, we designed a RISC-based MV-SFQ microprocessor with an embedded instruction and data memory, and confirmed execution of all the instructions stored in the instruction memory. Note that these circuits are designed based on the SFQ-specific CAD tools in a digital domain and sometimes based on a microwave simulator for analog components. Furthermore, the introduction of ferromagnetic materials to devices or circuits, the invention of superconducting nano-devices, and the combination with CMOS integrated circuits enhance flexibility of the analog circuits as well as digital circuits and lead to technological innovation. Almost all the remaining issues such as large capacity memories, rectifiers, will be overcome by using these technologies. Superconducting digital technology is now transformed into cryogenic digital technology. Although the above-mentioned technologies are based on Nb or NbN films, I will give some comments on the importance of high-temperature-superconductor (HTS) films. In fact, the waveguides made of HTS films are essential for, broadband communications with ultra-low heat inflow between a 1st stage and a 2nd stage of a cryocooler. HTS analog active nanodevices would be attractive for an amplifier operating around 50 K.

Superconductor integrated circuits (ICs), built with niobium Josephson junctions (JJs), offer an attractive combination of features for mixed-signal electronics up to frequencies above 100 GHz. In these circuits, conversion between analog and digital domains can be done with high fidelity, by exploiting magnetic flux quantization, and at high speed. Niobium JJs have picosecond switching times and enable sampling rates above 100 GHz. This fast and accurate analog-to-digital conversion function is strengthened by the ability to integrate ultrafast, low-power digital circuits and low-loss analog circuits on the same chip. These features give rise to a class of mixed-signal circuits for a diversity of applications, ranging from communications to quantum computing. Among these are software radio and digital radar applications which benefit from digital signal processing applied directly on digitized radio frequency (RF) waveforms. On the other hand, the same technology applies to reading out cryogenic detectors and qubits. In this paper, we describe the current state-of-the-art of digital-RF systems, featuring superconductor mixed-signal circuits. The latest generation of these robust cryocooled systems are modular and have been operated for a variety of applications over the last four years. In these systems, the function of superconductor mixed-signal ICs is augmented by semiconductor cryogenic and room-temperature electronics. We also describe the next generation of superconductor ICs that are faster and feature much higher integration density and complexity. Finally, microwave design challenges will be discussed in two critical areas: (1) interchip interconnects for analog signals and picosecond-wide single flux quantum (SFQ) pulses supporting rates above 100 GHz , and (2) generation, distribution and synchronization of clock signals also above 100 GHz.

In recent years, great efforts have been devoted to the research and development of high temperature superconducting (HTS) filters in China. Novel HTS filter design technologies were well developed including those in coupling matrix extraction, wide stop band realization, liner phase, multiplexer, multi-band and multi-mode designs, and frequency tunable filters. Based on these techniques, high performance HTS filters were constructed and excellent specifications were achieved, e.g., 0.05 dB minimum insertion loss, -23 dB return loss, -110 dB out-of-band rejection and 220 dB/MHz band-edge slope, etc., which are among the best results in the literatures. Applications of HTS filters are also successful. A demonstration wireless communication cluster with HTS filter subsystems was built in the urban area of Beijing. Each base transceiver station (BTS) was installed with an HTS filter subsystem consisting of six HTS filters with the same performance. The measurement results show a 2.35 dB decrease of mobile phone mean transmit power when the normal filter subsystems were replaced by HTS filter subsystems. Based on the success in constructing an HTS filter handling high power up to 11.7 W, one of the highest records in the literature, the world first HTS transceiver was constructed, which was installed in a 3rd generation TD-SCDMA base station (it works in TDD mode, i.e., the receiving and emitting signals use the same frequency channel). Field trial in commercial network showed excellent improvements in reducing bit error (80%), enhancing anti-interference (10 dBm), restricting spurious power in emitting signals (26 dBm), and also in receiving quality of video communications. Field trial for the 4th generation mobile communication systems (e.g. TD-LTE) is now being carried out and results will be reported in the symposium. Another interesting application is to radar system, e.g., the meteorological radar, which is sometimes paralyzed by heavy electromagnetic interference in urban area due to the lack of extremely narrow bandwidth pre-selective filters. Laboratory tests proved that, with HTS subsystem, improvements of sensitivity (3.8 dB) and interference rejection (48.4 dB) have been achieved. A demonstration HTS meteorological radar station was then set up in Beijing. Comparison measurements showed that due to interference, the conventional wind profiler could not attain stable and reliable wind profiles above 1500m where the echoes are weak. In contrast, the HTS wind profiler provided complete and coincident wind profiles up to 3500 m. In poor weather conditions or severe electromagnetic environment, the conventional wind profiler almost stopped working, while the HTS wind profiler functioned well, and complete wind profile data on both the time scale and the spatial scale could be obtained by using the HTS wind profiler. The third application is to radio astronomy and deep space detection. HTS filters were deployed in the ground stations of Chinese lunar exploration project, which played an important role in monitoring the mission of Chang'e No. 3 satellite. Finally, applications in space technology are most challenging and attractive. In 2005, the first ground test system showed that a reduction of 73% in noise temperature was obtained by substituting HTS front-end for its conventional counterpart. On October 14, 2012, the HTS experimental system was successfully launched into orbit as a payload of a civil experimental satellite for new technologies (Practice No 9). The received on-orbit experimental data showed that the HTS system worked perfect in the past years. This is the world second successful space experiment for HTS devices after the American’s HTSSE. Application of HTS filter front-end in a space science project is also ready for space mission with Chinese Space Laboratory, to be launched in mid September, 2016.

The Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) technology has the potential of replacing many radio frequency (RF) and microwave components used in today's communication systems. In particular, the use of RF MEMS in the reconfigurable filters would not only reduce substantially the size, weight but also promise linearity performance that is far superior to other technologies. The ability to integrate MEMS with superconductor filters promise to realize tunable filters with an unprecedented performance. The talk will address the behaviour of RF MEMS switches at cryogenic temperatures illustrating their use in the realization of superconductive tunable filters.

Recently, microwave devices of the high-temperature superconducting thin film operating in a high magnetic field have been studied. In such applications, it is necessary to create a thin film with a low microwave surface resistance (Rs) under a high magnetic field. The introduction of artificial pins (Aps) in YBa2Cu3O7 (YBCO) thin film is useful to reduce the Rs in high magnetic fields. We examined the formation of APS by ion implantation of Si, Mo and In ions. We found that Rs of ion-implanted YBCO thin films could be reduced to about one-quarter of the non-irradiated YBCO thin films. We also examined the APs structure by positron annihilation life time spectroscopy. As a result APs was found to be a vacancy of about 0.5nm3. We developed a prototype 700MHzNMR pickup coil made by YBCO thin films. The sensitivity of NMR could be improved by using YBCO pickup coil compared with using a conventional NMR pickup coil. It is expected to improve further sensitivity by using the ion-implanted YBCO thin film, and we are currently considering it.

Quantum information processing devices are now sufficiently advanced to imagine scaling up this technology into complex, multicomponent systems. This transition, from quantum devices to quantum machines will require the development of new cryogenic electronic platforms operating at 4 kelvin and below. This talk will outline efforts to develop cryo-CMOS and SiGe circuits for controlling and reading out scaled-up quantum machines.

Flexible and robust superconducting microwave transmission line cables are an enabling technology for densely integrated cryogenic electronics systems. Currently, single co-axial transmission lines are bulky and often limit integration density due to volume and thermal load constraints. We will discuss the current status of our research and development efforts to construct and characterize multi-conductor superconducting flexible cables made using thin-film processing techniques. Trade-offs and performance of various materials stack-ups will be discussed. Characterization has been performed using transmission line and resonator geometries from temperatures of approximately 9 K down to 20 mK. These cables show great promise as interconnect structures in future superconducting and cryogenic electronics systems, including superconducting quantum computing applications.

In the era of internet of things (IoT) and wireless communication, energy- and area-efficient wireless transceivers are critical for extended battery life and small form factor of many systems. On the other hand, innovations in analog circuits have been driven by rapidly evolving semiconductor technology in line with Moore’s law. A switched capacitor power amplification (SCPA) technique, based on RF switched capacitor digital-to-analog converter architecture, offers very high energy efficiency and superior linearity for wireless transmitters. The measured peak Pout and power-added-efficiency (PAE) of a prototype SCPA are 25.2 dBm and 45%, respectively. For 802.11g 64-QAM OFDM modulated signal, the average Pout and PAE are 17.7 dBm and 27%, respectively, and the measured EVM is 2.6%. Class-G technique can be applied to SCPA to further enhance the efficiency. With additional supply voltage and advanced switching scheme for multiple supply voltages, the measured peak Pout and PAE are 24.3 dBm and 43.5%, respectively, whereas the average Pout and PAE are 16.8 dBm and 33%, respectively, for 802.11g signals. The measured EVM is 2.9% without any predistortion applied.

Recently, we have developed a transmitter based on RFDAC. A three-level LO clock is employed to improve the digitizing efficiency and to combine I and Q signals in time domain. Since the signals are in a single stream, I and Q signals could be up-converted using the one sampling mixer, realizing I/Q sharing structure. The mixer thermo-code element pairs whose output powers are internally cancelled, are disabled to reduce the power consumption. The resulting RFDAC provides the efficiency comparable to the polar transmitter without using a Cordic. The output powers of the mixer elements are amplified by inverters and the final powers of the cells are combined using a capacitor array similarly to the switched capacitor DAC. To reduce the thermo-code elements, the data is processed only in the first quadrant and is rotated to the original position. A dual Vdd structure is also employed. The detailed design issues and the measured performances of the transmitter will be discussed.

In this talk the switched capacitor PA (SCPA) is introduced. It leverages CMOS inherent strengths of fast switching and lithographic matching to yield a linear, efficient digital PA. The original SCPA was a polar PA, subject to significant system level non-linearity (wide bandwidth, lack of synchronization, etc). I will introduce several techniques that implement SCPAs in discrete phase spaces; several multiple phase digital PA architectures will be discussed that alleviate the need for wideband phase modulators and synchronization. I will highlight several recent examples from the University of Utah PERFIC lab’s research with applications of the multiphase techniques to the SCPA.

The recent trend of deploying digital transmitters has stimulated an increasing interest in power amplifiers research and development using RF power DACs. The digitally intensive and reprogrammable nature of RF power DACs opens the door to creating hybrid and broadband power amplifier architectures that can combine the advantages of different power amplifier techniques and potentially achieve superior peak power efficiency, back-off efficiency, and linearity. These hybrid architectures cannot be easily realized using conventional analog power amplifiers. Two power amplifier design will be presented as examples of such hybrid digitally intensive power amplifiers. One design exploits the real-time cooperation of dynamic load modulation and class-G supply modulation, and the other design shows a power amplifier with broadband and highly linear operation.

Analog/RF circuits, particularly conventional power amplifiers, do not benefit much from technology scaling. RF transmitters utilize multiple passive components which do not scale with technology and are narrowband. Hence an architecture that can benefit truly from technology scaling as well as offer wideband multi-mode performance will be beneficial. Such architecture is indispensable for reconfigurable or software-defined radios. Digitally modulated transmitters offer such a solution. In this talk, we will cover the pros and cons of a digitally modulated transmitter with special emphasis on a power amplifier. Ways of achieving higher efficiency by using novel impedance modulation will be introduced. In particular, a high power 65nm mixed-signal Inverse Class-D power amplifier design with switchable power combiner will be presented and its integration into a complete transmitter will be discussed.

The insatiable need of consumers worldwide for higher data rates in wireless communication brings the frequencies of operation towards the millimeter wave spectrum. The polar architecture enables the power amplifier to operate in saturation where efficiency is highest, even when handling higher-order modulations with variable envelope. System analysis for IEEE 802.11ad applications show a required input baseband signal bandwidth of more than 1GHz and the need to synchronize the amplitude and phase paths with picosecond time resolution. A prototype chip uses an RF-DAC with 10GS/s to modulate the amplitude path while overcoming out-of-band spectral images. Implemented in 40nm bulk-CMOS, the 0.18mm2 core circuit transmits a full-rate 5.3dBm QPSK signal with 15.3% average PA efficiency and -23.6dB EVM with -30dB out-of-band distortion.

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) encodes the amplitude information of a signal in the duty cycle of a periodic pulse waveform that is switching at a frequency much higher than the bandwidth of the signal itself. Combined with a switch-mode driver amplifier, such as a class-D stage, PWM offers an efficient approach for implementing transmitters. The approach is especially well-suited for digitally-intensive, CMOS-friendly implementations. While PWM combined with a class-D output stage has been very effectively employed in audio systems, its use in wider bandwidth applications such as wireless systems requires an exploration of new circuit techniques and architectures. In this talk, we will describe PWM-based transmitter architectures for applications where the signal bandwidth can extend from several hundreds of KHz to tens of MHz. Transmitters that allow for PWM generation at RF, without the requirement for frequency upconversion, will be described. An overview of the benefits and potential limitations of the PWM approach will be presented. Practical implementations of wireless transmitters employing this approach will also be presented.

The first published THz medical imaging appeared in the literature at the end of the 1990s and the field experienced accelerated research and development well into the 2000s. The vast majority of reported systems were THz time domain spectroscopy (TDS) and THz time domain imaging (TDI) where ultra-broadband pulses with typically > 1 THz of instantaneous bandwidth were generated and synchronously detected with some combination of photoconductive and electro-optic devices driven by femtosecond lasers. Fast forward to today and while much progress has been made in clinically relevant investigations, clinical translation of THz technology has been limited. There are many applications where TDS and/or TDI still seem ideally suited. However, there is growing evidence that THz imaging systems based on RF technology (part of the standard tool set in the fields of personnel imaging, non-destructive evaluation, and radio astronomy) may be well matched for a multitude of clinical investigations. These issues strongly suggest broad instantaneous bandwidth may not be necessary and thus that the field of THz medical imaging may benefit greatly from research and development of systems based on RF technology. In this talk we introduce two medical applications where video rate acquisition of large areas of the body in pursuit of high contrast anomaly detection would immediately generate interest from the medical community. Further, physiologic and clinical work flow arguments will be made that highlight some of the limitations of TDS/TDI and emphasize the unique capabilities of RF based systems.

Electromagnetic waves in the millimeter- and sub-millimeter-wave frequency ranges are used in fast-scan rotational spectroscopy to detect gas molecules and measure their concentrations. This technique can be used for indoor air quality monitoring, detection of toxic gas leaks, breath analyses for monitoring bodily conditions and many others. This talk reports a 210-to-305GHz transmitter and receiver circuits for a rotational spectrometer. Techniques presented include on-chip antennas, artificial magnetic conductors, diode-based mixers, and high-precision PLLs. Full spectroscopy measurements using these CMOS components will also be reported. 200-250-GHz transmitter and receiver for rotational spectroscopy, which can identify a wide variety of molecules in gas phase and quantify their concentration are demonstrated in 65-nm CMOS. Because the width of spectral lines is ~1MHz or Q is more than 200,000, lines of different molecules do not overlap and provide almost absolute specificity. A rotational spectrometer is an electronic nose. Considering how smell is used in daily life, the number of applications should be almost limitless. The transmitter and receiver were used to detect ethanol from a human breath demonstrating that CMOS will be able to support practical applications at 200-300GHz

The talk will present the latest work at UCSD for wideband imaging systems at 10-40 GHz. Transmitter and receiver chips, achieving record performance, will be presented. Also, a simple imaging system showing the resolution of this technique will be shown.

This talk will discuss the challenges of LO requirements and LO distribution for radar and imaging arrays specifically looking at phase noise and distortion related effects and show examples of physically disconnected phase array exciters at 100 and 150 GHz in CMOS technology

Recently, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) and terahertz imaging are new methods with unique capabilities. Based on coherent and time-resolved detection of the electric field of ultrashort radiation pulses in the far-infrared, and very versatile ways to generate and detect, Terahertz and millimeter waves can penetrate various dielectric materials, including plastics, ceramics, crystals, and concrete, allowing terahertz transmission and reflection images or analyses to be considered. In this review, the authors describe the techniques in its various implementations for static and time-resolved spectroscopy and imaging, and illustrate the performance of the technique with recent examples with various laboratory and industrial projects. Possible future improvements are related to semiconductor or optical laser sources and detector (Quantum Cascade laser and MMIC sources and sensors, THz camera for example). The terahertz science and especially terahertz imaging will be probably an emerging and an efficient tool for a lot of industrial applications.

The performance of a differential LC oscillator can be enhanced by resonating the common-mode of the circuit at twice the oscillation frequency. When this technique is correctly employed, Q-degradation due to the triode operation of the differential pair is eliminated and flicker noise is nulled. Although the original topology using this technique first appeared in 2001, its performance remains state of the art. In this workshop, we will use Bank’s general result to show that common-mode resonate topologies are, in fact, near-optimal. That is, for a given resonator tank Q, the FOM of such a design is within 1dB of theoretical limit for any oscillator. Common design pitfalls, which may prevent this near optimal behavior, will be explained and the importance of differential pair sizing will be explored. Insights from class-D and class-C topologies will be used to gain additional intuition into the optimization of the differential pair. It will also be shown how recently published topologies achieve common-mode resonance using a single differential LC tank (i.e. removing the requirement for an additional tail inductor). Although such topologies have one less degree of design freedom, their performance is theoretical identically to the standard approach of using a tail resonate tank.

Spectral purity of RF LC-tank oscillators is typically addressed by enhancing its oscilla-tion voltage, improving the quality factor of the tank, lowering its noise factor, and in-creasing its power consumption. However, the rate of improvement in phase noise versus power consumption reduces as the core devices enter the triode region. On the other hand, technology scaling limits the oscillation voltage swing due to the reliability issues. It also slightly degrades the tank Q-factor and transistor excess noise factor and thus penalizing oscillator phase noise. Conse-quently, the oscillators of excellent spectral purity and power efficiency are becoming more and more challenging. This has motivated an intensive research leading to recently introduced new oscillator topologies. In the first part of this presentation, we specifically address the ultra-low phase noise design space while maintaining high power efficiency. The main idea is to enforce a pseudo-square or clipped voltage waveform around the LC-tank by increasing the second or/and third harmonics of the fundamental oscillation volt-age through additional impedance peaks, thus giving rise to a class-F operation. As a result, the oscillator impulse sensitivity function and circuit-to-phase noise conver-sion reduce especially when the active gm-devices periodically enter the triode region during which the LC-tank is heavily loaded. In the second part of this talk, we switch gears to the ultra-low voltage and power design space for Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. The benefits and constraints of different flavors of LC oscillators are investigated from this perspective. It will be shown that a switching current-source oscillator combines advantages of low supply voltage of the conventional NMOS cross-coupled oscillator with high current efficiency of the comple-mentary push-pull oscillator to reduce the oscillator supply voltage and dissipated power further than practically possible in the traditional oscillators.

The talk will deal with the design of low-phase noise voltage-controlled harmonic oscillators (VCOs) implemented in bipolar technologies. The design challenges related to achieving minimum phase noise for a given set of technology parameters (supply voltage, metal stack, varactor devices, etc.) will be discussed with particular emphasis to attaining low phase noise while using varactor diodes, to the use of magnetic transformers in the resonator, and to the selection of the most appropriate oscillator topology. Suitable design techniques to tackle such issues will be illustrated. As a design example of the use of the proposed techniques, two class-C VCOs tailored for operation in the K-band will be presented.

Modern mobile communication systems need clocks with very low phase noise and low power consumption. In RF and mm-wave oscillators this can be achieved acting on the oscillator topology and/or on the resonator quality factor. Oscillator topology affects the power vs phase noise trade-off in two equally important ways. First, acting on the conversion of circuit noise into phase noise through changing the impulse sensitivity function (ISF); second, changing the maximum achievable power conversion efficiency, i.e. the conversion of DC power into resonator RF power, which directly affects the phase noise. The goal of this talk is to investigate the ultimate performance limit for some of the most used oscillators topologies, including most types of class-B (standard, AC-coupled and with tail filter), class-C and class-F LC oscillators as well as mm-wave distributed oscillators (traveling-wave and standing-wave). An intuitive yet sufficiently accurate formulation of phase noise is presented. To compare different topologies an excess noise factor that represents the difference between the maximum achievable Figure of Merit and the actual one is also introduced. In addition, the theory is experimentally verified in a rigorous and objective way comparing different topologies in the exact same operating conditions, i.e. technology, Q of the tank, dividers, etc. Measurements on several chip prototypes allow to verify, in an unbiased way a very good agreement between the model and both simulations and measurements.

Low frequency LC-VCOs have been well studied in the literature and several strategies have been developed to optimize their performance. However, several interesting challenges in the mm-wave space, especially close to the fT/fmax, motivate the need for a closer examination of the tuning range and phase noise in mm-wave VCOs. This seminar will elucidate some of the key challenges in designing mm-wave VCOs while also offering some insight on how to design them “robustly” in silicon-based technologies. First a detailed analysis of the ultimate performance bounds in simultaneously achieving low phase noise and wide tuning range will be presented. Next, the impact of technology scaling on the achievable performance bounds will be illustrated. The tuning range and close-in/far-out phase noise performance of MOS and HBT VCOs across the 10-70 GHz space will then be analyzed and compared. Here, special attention will be paid to the impact of different circuit parameters on the phase noise performance in both VCOs. Finally, a new BiCMOS topology is elicited and demonstrated to meet stringent phase noise and turning range specifications.

Advanced InP HEMT Technology for Terahertz Amplifier Circuits Advances in scaled InP High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) processes have achieved record low noise amplifier performance from millimeter-wave to THz frequencies and have resulted in the first ever Terahertz Monolithic Integrated Circuit (TMIC) demonstrating amplification at 1.0 THz (1000 GHz) for the first time. This presentation will describe the key manufacturing advances and future technology development roadmap, along with challenges as we transition advanced InP HEMT nodes from R&D into fielded hardware.

This presentation will compare the high frequency performance scaling of SiGe HBTs and MOSFETs to 2-3nm gate length and beyond 2THz transistor fMAX based on technology CAD (TCAD) and atomistic simulations. Characterization techniques and S-parameter measurements of state-of-the-art silicon MOSFETs, SiGe HBTs, and of a variety of HBT-HBT and MOS-HBT cascodes from DC to 325 GHz will be discussed along with simulations of the scaling of analog and mixed-signal mm-wave benchmark circuit performance from the current to future technology nodes.

The talk will present the latest development in THz phased-array transmitters, with emphasis on operation frequencies greater than 200 GHz. This includes CMOS phased-arrays operating at 370-410 GHz with high efficiency on-chip antennas and record EIRP, high efficiency multipliers and multiplier-arrays at 200-240 GHz, and quadruplers at 400-500 GHz with two-dimensional power combining.

Silicon-based integrated circuit technology provides a great platform for enabling compact, efficient, low-power, chip-scale THz systems for new applications in sensing, imaging and communication beyond the niche scientific applications that the spectrum is currently known for. While this is partially facilitated by scaling that has pushed device cut-off frequencies (ft, fmax) up into the higher mm-Wave and THz frequency range, the true paradigm shift in silicon integration is that it provides a unique opportunity to enable a new field of active THz electromagnetics realizable through a circuits-EM-systems codesign approach. At these frequencies, the chip dimension is several times larger than the THz wavelengths which allows novel scattering and radiating properties in a substrate that simultaneously supports a billion high-frequency transistors that can generate, process and sense these signals. The ability to actively synthesize, manipulate and sense THz EM fields at subwavelength scales with circuits opens up a new design space for THz electronics. THz architectures emerging from this space are often multi-functional, reconfigurable and break many of the classical trade-offs of a partitioned design approach. This talk will provide examples to illustrate this design methodology on THz signal generation with beam-forming and spectrum control and THz spectrum sensing.

Terahertz circuits, interconnects, and packaging have received unprecedented attention in recent years for their use in emerging areas such as security screening and standoff weapons detection, high speed digital communications, automatic landing systems through fog and dust, and even for aircraft re-fueling in air. Traditional terahertz application areas such as high-resolution spectrometers and imagers for astrophysics, planetary, and Earth science instruments are increasingly looking for multi-pixel array architecture which requires high level of integration and packaging. Active components such as InP high electron mobility transistors (HEMT) and metamorhpic HEMT (mHEMT), heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT), GaAs Schottky diodes, and CMOS circuits are being used at these frequencies. However, one major challenge has been to integrate them in a multipixel detector system with low-loss interconnects and build a highly integrated package. Common interconnect circuits such as microstrips and CPW lines are too lossy at these frequencies. Moreover, conventional approach of building single-pixel receivers and stacking them to assemble multi-pixel array receivers is not suited at terahertz frequencies. What one needs are novel ultra-compact receiver architectures which are easy to fabricate, preferably by lithographic techniques, to build multi-pixel array receivers where majority of the front-end components along with the antenna element can be integrated in a small form factor. In this workshop presentation we’ll talk about different multi-pixel receiver architectures at terahertz frequencies, specifically focusing on silicon micro-machined front-end components. We’ll discuss novel stacking of micro-machined silicon wafers which allows for the 3-dimensional integration of various terahertz receiver components in extremely small packages which easily leads to the development of 2-dimensioanl multi-pixel receiver front-ends in the terahertz frequency range. Integrating antennas with terahertz front-end elements has been challenging as most of the planar antennas are too lossy at these frequencies. In this presentation we’ll also explore novel horn and lens antenna architectures which are suitable for integration with silicon micromachined receiver systems. It will be shown that using advanced semiconductor nanofabrication techniques it is possible to design, fabricate, and demonstrate a super-compact, low-mass, and highly integrated multi-pixel terahertz array receiver. The research described herein was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA, under contract with National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

An active research and development of terahertz (THz) technologies were initiated with use of photonics technologies in 1990’s. In the last 10 years, with the advance of semiconductor devices and integrated circuits, electronics-based THz technologies have recently gained a great attention to make THz systems and subsystems more compact and cost-effective. In this talk, we review photonics-based approaches in practical applications such as communications and measurements, clarify merit, role and issue of photonics in THz technologies, and discuss its future directions to compete and/or coexist with electronics.

Scaling of silicon technology following Moores’ law has allowed feasibility of CMOS circuits operating above 100GHz. These high frequencies support order of magnitude higher bandwidths enabling high-data rate applications. Furthermore, at these high frequencies, thin (mm-range) polymer fibers such as those made from PE,PP, PS, PTFE, are excellent transmission media and exhibit fairly low loss, below 5dB/m. As such, the combination of CMOS mm-wave transceivers, on-chip or on-board antennas and thin plastic fibers leads to an innovative communication concept that is, in certain applications, perform better than optical communication or copper wireline communication. Especially for cases where high EMI resilience, high mechanical tolerance and low costs are important, such as automotive communication, this 'RF over Plastics' concept can be a game-changing technology. This presentation will discuss some of the key benefits and drawbacks of polymer microwave fiber technology and will present the results of the ongoing research at KU Leuven on this topic since 2012.

Integrated circuits in silicon technologies have been increasingly used in the THz spectrum for synthesis and detection of signals. In spite of the physical limitations related to device speed and cutoff frequencies, circuit design techniques have been implemented to enable integrated terahertz systems well beyond these frequencies. THz imaging in silicon is example of this approach, and can potentially enable new applications in this range. The large available bandwidth from 0.3-3THz combined with on-chip multi-element integration can enable novel imaging perspectives. However, enabling this system in a cost-effective and scalable fashion presents significant challenges not only in the realm of circuit design, but also in the co-design of the entire system. Many challenges are still to be addressed, starting with availability of efficient sources with high radiated power, improved tuning range and coherence. On the receiver front, detectors are also in need of improving their sensitivity. These considerations have led to active imaging approaches and systems have been demonstrated with these methodologies. This workshop presentation will focus on recent work that addresses these challenges in silicon technology. This will cover circuit realizations in CMOS technology for terahertz generation and detection, as well as novel imaging approaches.

This presentation will give an overview of 5G communication Systems including New Ecosystems and Markets, Usage Scenarios, Mission-Critical Services, Massive Internet of Things, Standards and Spectrum. Major trends will be summarized with a perspective on developments and technologies at this extraordinary time in communications. These important areas include: Open agile innovation, Cloud based applications with wireless connectivity to devices, Local/distributed integrated smart capabilities (processing and memory), and Increasing Software-defined-centric world The development of introduction of past 2G, 3G and 4G telecom systems were done in a well-defined and established ecosystems but NOT in 5G, it will be mix of established players and new ecosystems. Examples of affected ecosystems will be given beyond the world the Internet Giants of Google, Facebook, Amazon, plus others unexpected etc.

Recent years have seen considerable increase in activities related to 5G definition and associated research. While a number of novel use cases and services are being contemplated, there is consensus that data demand will continue to grow, putting further pressure on already congested spectrum. Millimeter-wave bands have been cited as having the potential to alleviate some of this pressure. This talk will cover the opportunities and challenges with mobile communications in the millimeter wave band for the deployments and use cases of interest. Specifically, the talk will first cover material and channel propagation measurements highlighting the contrast with sub-6GHz propagation. With those observations, a number of system design principles and associated device/component level requirements will be outlined. Finally, taking some of the design principles and component level considerations into account, coverage and capacity modeling results will be presented. Some test results from our first generation prototype system at 28GHz will also be presented

Millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) technology has matured and it’s almost ready for 5G. However, the limited capacity of back-haul links are becoming bottleneck of mm-Wave integrated networks. In this talk, a fusion of mm-Wave access and mobile edge computing (MiEdge) is introduced to alleviate the problem of back-haul links and to facilitate spreading of mm-Wave technologies in 5G systems.

The exploration of mm-wave frequencies and active antenna architectures will pose completely new challenges in the design of base stations for 5G mobile networks. In the first part of this presentation, we will discuss how various RF hardware impairments will affect the performance in emerging base station architectures. We will introduce new analysis techniques that help us explain and understand how key RF parameters like nonlinear distortion, energy efficiency, and phase-noise will have to be revisited in derivation of future circuit design requirements. The theoretical predictions will be complemented with experimental results obtained using Chalmers 30 GHz massive MIMO test-bed. The second part of the presentation will be devoted to the design of critical mm-wave circuits for 5G base stations. Starting from 5G base station requirements, we will present an integrated 30 GHz SiGe BiCMOS transmitter lineup comprising the co-design of analog pre-distortion linearization, I/Q modulator, and efficient Doherty PA circuits. The excellent results obtained demonstrate the capabilities offered by advanced semiconductor technologies, and indicates a possible direction towards realization of efficient and linear transmitters for next generation wireless systems.

Traditionally, in a wireless communication system, the power amplifier (PA) has been designed as a standalone block. More recently, the need to maximize the performance and reduce the cost lead the PA and digital pre-distortion (DPD) algorithms to a joint development. For the future, besides the referred performance maximization and cost reduction, the 5G systems will add an extra parameter, the integration. Considering that the massive MIMO antenna structures (for frequencies below 6GHz) might contain 64 or more antenna elements (each one with an associated PA), it is evident that to achieve the requested objectives, the PA design cannot be dissociated from the remaining front-end blocks. This factor is even more visible at mm-Wave frequencies, at which the physical dimensions are so stringent that integration is even more important and the technology limitations forces more innovative designs.

This presentation will discuss the challenges of implementing a wide-band and high-efficiency PA in CMOS technology at mm-wave frequencies. Key-enabling circuit techniques, such as on-chip power combining and wide-band AM-PM cancellation, will be discussed in greater detail. These techniques are crucial to support higher order constellations such as 64QAM and 256QAM as needed for 5G. Several PA examples in 40nm and 28nm CMOS, operating at 28GHz, 60GHz and 85GHz will be used throughout the presentation to further explain the used techniques.

The talk will present the latest development in 5G communication systems at UCSD. The phased-arrays and related communication links will be discussed, both at 28 GHz and at 60 GHz. Prof. Rebeiz group has achieved Gbps over hundreds of meters, even kms, using phased-array technologies. All work is based on silicon RFICs and innovative packaging

As the demand for higher data rates in mobile communications still increases, new wireless systems might even use millimeter wave frequencies for the connection between the base station and the mobile. In addition, millimeter wave links are very attractive for front- and back-hauling of the new femto-cell base stations placed in areas of very high user density like transportation hubs and downtown areas. Since at millimeter wave frequencies they use of cables between antenna and transceiver is not anymore reasonable in this presentation antenna concepts for the above sketched applications will be presented together with suitable integration concepts.

The first decade of millimeter-waves in silicon (2000-2010) saw the maturation of complex SiGe and CMOS integrated circuits and systems for short-range high-data-rate wireless communications. More recently, the millimeter-wave range has drawn significant interest for next-generation ("5G") cellular communication networks. Such applications place significantly different requirements on the systems, including link range, mobility and coexistence, resulting in far more stringent circuit requirements, such as higher transmitter output power, stricter transmitter linearity, and agile beam-steering in large-scale phased-arrays. In addition, advanced communication paradigms, such as full-duplex and massive MIMO, are being considered to further enhance the spectral efficiency and data capacity. This workshop presentation will reviews recent developments on a few candidate CMOS-based circuit and system technologies for 5G millimeter-wave applications.

Next-generation wireless communications systems call for RF transceivers with multi-functional operability as well as immunity to undesired interference and noise that are typically present in dense communication environments. As a result, advanced filtering devices capable of meeting the very stringent requirements demanded by these systems need to be conceived. In particular, acoustic-wave (AW) filters have been the key filtering technology of mobile transceivers due to their high quality factor (>10,000) and miniaturized volume (

Coping with the rapid increase of mobile data traffic, the frequency spectrum for mobile communications has been expanding, and in the 5G system a wide range from sub-6GHz to mm-wave bands will be employed in addition to conventional LTE bands. For mm-wave communications, beam-forming technique and/or Massive MIMO are indispensable technologies, so new requirements for RF front-ends have been emerging for both mobile terminals and base stations. This presentation describes the challenges for higher and wider frequency range application of RF front-end devices and modules. For a 28GHz phased array unit, Antenna integrated Module (AiM) with small size and high performance modules including not only RF-ICs, amplifiers and passive components but also antenna pattern using a low temperature co-fired ceramics (LTCC) is one of the key technologies. Heterogeneous integration and 3D structure lead to the size reduction and low loss. Furthermore, a quartz waveguide Band Pass Filter (BPF) and a miniaturized circulator for 28GHz improve the massive MIMO antenna system. Expansion to 60GHz antenna array integrated modules and sub-6GHz reconfigurable RF front-end architectures are discussed. Accurate and high speed measurement technologies for mm-wave antenna module performances are also introduced.

The talk will present the latest development in 5G communication systems at UCSD. The phased-arrays and related communication links will be discussed, both at 28 GHz and at 60 GHz. Prof. Rebeiz group has achieved Gbps over hundreds of meters, even kms, using phased-array technologies. All work is based on silicon RFICs and innovative packaging.

Small cell backhaul communication in 5G mm-wave systems will occur in the 27 – 30 GHz band. Depending on the choice of antenna plane, link budget and beam steering concept, the required transmitted output power of the Front End Modules (FEM) is in the range of 15dBm to 30dBm. Besides the challenge to deliver this level of power at mm-wave frequencies in silicon technology, efficiency becomes a crucial design parameter as case cooling of the antenna panel with more than 100 FEM units is preferred. In this presentation we will discuss techniques to realize silicon-based RF PAs for these power levels at these mm-wave frequencies and elaborate on thermal design and packaging. In this workshop we will discuss a 5G mm-wave transmit line up with 18dBm output power and an integrated 30dBm PA for backhaul communication, both realized in an in-house SiGe:C BiCMOS technology.

The last 15 years has witnessed revolutionary changes in mobile computing and wireless communication. This was fueled in large part through Moore’s Law, coupled with research and development of new highly-integrated, silicon CMOS devices which transformed large bulky transceiver components into a single chip for wireless applications. These single-chip radios freed up valuable space for more memory and powerful processors, making the modern smartphone, as we know it today, so common and ubiquitous. Although the architectures, circuits, and system-level design methodologies to realize these low-cost, highly-integrated RF ICs have largely been defined, questions remain on how to enable chips for emerging applications in an era of large scale data acquisition, and communication, for a variety of devices ranging in use from wireless sensing, to high-speed mobile communication and radar. A common theme among these future devices is the need for highly-integrated ultra-broadband (10GHz+) transceiver solutions. However, achieving high bandwidth in the mm-Wave band becomes challenging without burning excessive power and occupying an absolute minimum silicon area, particularly in phased-array applications where numerous elements are replicated on the same die. This presentation explores recent work which attempt to achieve extremely high bandwidth transceivers while utilizing the smallest silicon area possible.

A major challenge for low-cost silicon-based mm-wave wireless systems, e.g., the 5G MIMO communication links, is to provide large transmitter (Tx) output power (Pout) with high energy efficiency and linearity from a limited supply voltage, so that the high path loss and limited link budget at mm-wave can be compensated. Power combining is often required for these mm-wave Tx. The existing power combining techniques are mainly in two categories. Passive networks can combine the Pout from multiple power amplifiers (PAs) and feed the single antenna port. However, lossy power combiners and large impedance transformation ratios degrade the total Pout delivered to the antenna and lower the Tx efficiency. Alternatively, spatial power combining using antenna array increases the total EIRP but at the expense of a large array panel size. Moreover, a large antenna array often presents an exceedingly narrow (or even pencil-sharp) beam-width; this complicates the Tx/Rx alignment and is challenging for dynamic and mobile mm-wave applications, such as 5G links. In addition, adding silicon lens enhances EIRP but increases cost and packaging complexity. In this talk, we present a concept of multi-feed antenna (MFA) and its co-design with mm-wave transmitters; MFA can be viewed as multiple electrically small antennas that are driven concurrently by multiple feeds but radiate collectively and efficiently as a single antenna. Such an MFA structure naturally allows on-antenna low-loss power combining from multiple PAs, radiation impedance down-scaling, and boosting total output power in one single antenna footprint. We will present multiple MFA designs at different frequencies to demonstrate the concept. We will also present a 60GHz linear radiator element in a 45nm CMOS SOI, as an on-chip MFA driven by 16 linear PAs. The radiator IC generates 27.9dBm Psat and 33.1dBm peak EIRP with 23.4% PAE at 59GHz, showing the best reported mm-Wave PA/transmitter performance in the 60GHz band. Without any signal pre-distortion, the radiator IC achieves -21.9dB EVM with 20.2dBm Pavg for 4Gb/s 16QAM signal, and -25.4dB EVM with 19.3dBm Pavg for 4.8Gb/s 64QAM signal.

Phased array mmWave transceiver architectures for directional Gb/s wireless links, suitable for full integration in silicon are reviewed. Design considerations of building blocks, key to beamforming performance such as RF phase shifters and variable gain amplifiers are presented and illustrated with examples. Antenna diversity and beam forming techniques suitable for low-cost packaging implementation are also discussed. Fully integrated transceiver implementation examples including antennas-in-package are presented to illustrate system-implementation trade-offs, and IC-package co-design challenges.

Traditionally antennas, packages, RFICs are designed separately and put together with interconnects and matching networks to create wireless communication systems. Recent advancements of CMOS-based ICs are enabling mm-wave systems for next generation communication. At mm-waves, it is desired that the antennas, mmW-ICs, packages, system-modules are co-designed to avoid performance degradation. This talk will present mm-wave co-design and testing examples to discuss the advantages and challenges associated with CMOS-based mmW systems for 5G applications.

The increase of integrated radio transceivers carrier frequencies is posing an important challenge for testing. 5G system are following in this directions with envisaged carrier frequencies beyond 24 GHz. Built-in testing and built-in self-testing (BIST) for RFIC is an attractive solution for RFICs but with increasing carrier frequencies the access to the high frequency outputs of the circuits, especially at mmW frequencies becomes very challenging if a minimum impact on the circuit performance has to be preserved. Non-invasive, contact-less techniques using indirect measurements, such as the local temperature increase have been recently proposed to tackle this issue. Other recent BIST techniques are based on replica circuits. We will introduce in this talks these innovative BIST technique for mmW integrated front-ends.

A number of new design and test challenges arise as 5G evolves to provide greater data capacity. Modulation bandwidths much wider than LTE are expected and designs are done at frequencies above 28 GHz where spectrum is available. These millimeter wave devices may not have a physical test port, requiring test equipment to connect wirelessly and calibration methods that correct for the air interface. This presentation introduces challenges associated with Physical Layer (PHY) testing of SoC at Millimeter Wave frequencies; then it discusses generation and analysis tools offered by Test and Measurement vendors to improve signal quality measurements at these frequencies. Results achieved on a 60GHz low-power transceiver module are presented.

To achieve the dramatic improvements in capacity and spectral efficiency needed to accommodate access to high volume of wireless data and the even increasing number of users who want to access to it anytime and anywhere, three symbiotic technological directions are independently emerged: (1) A push towards greater frequency reuse through the creation of smaller and smaller cells, referred to as pico- and femto cells with ranges on the order of 10-200 meters. (2) A consideration of millimeter wave frequencies around and above 70 GHz where the spectrum is less crowded and greater bandwidth is available. (3) The idea of base stations equipped with a large number of antennas that can simultaneously accommodate many co-channel users. This idea is referred as MIMO. However, the next generation multi-antenna transceivers must also provide sufficient output power with great radiation selectivity and directivity. This notion is calling for new generations of MIMO transceivers that also provide beamforming forming and spatial power combining. This talk will be going through latest advances in this exciting domain.

Design by Mathematics is an inventive design approach dedicated to high performance integrated circuits. It is based on mathematical principles and techniques, such as Riemann’s integration or Fourier’s transformation. These mathematical tools are used to optimize a specific signal processing and conditioning. A given tool behavior is then copied as much as possible within a silicon implementation, yielding to mixed-signal integrated circuits that demonstrate innovative system architectures and disruptive approaches. While using Design by Mathematics does not imply one will achieve better performances than when using classical design techniques, it offers a substitute that can counteract key technical bottlenecks and pave the way to new opportunities. In this talk several Design by Mathematics examples will be presented, focusing on wireless systems. These systems include next generation standards such as 5G and its carrier aggregation technique in the radio frequency range. Fourier’s and Walsh’s transformations will used, as well as Fourier’s recombination and Riemann’s integration, for either the receiver path or the transmitter path of a system.

Emerging low power radios are going to be required for IoT, WBAN and even 5G. In this tutorial we will explore the power dissipation limiters of current radio architecture and propose solutions to counteract them. In particular, we will describe details for a standard compliant 2.4GHz low power radio architecture for IEEE 802.15.16 WBAN radios that uses both a new receiver architecture and a new transmitter architecture to approach the single milliwatt power level while being standard compliant.

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A novel single-PLL, fixed-oscillator, wideband multi-tuner architecture is presented for concurrent multi-band and multi-channel car radio reception based on wideband and high-resolution A/D converters. This architecture simplifies the LO and clock generation, while it also prevents oscillator pulling and spurs which are notorious for classical narrow-band multi-tuner solutions. An implementation of a wide-band HD radio & DAB/T-DMB receiver will be shown, demonstrating best-in-class blocker performance (DAB FoS up to 70dBc) in combination with state-of-the-art DAB sensitivity down to -102dBm. The design aspects of a high-performance 2.2GHz DS ADC with -102dBc THD are presented that also enables the wideband fixed-oscillator receiver concept for the very performance demanding automotive AM/FM radio standards.

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Transceiver architectures and circuits for the 5G technologies will be reviewed in this presentation. Gb/s data-rates over the air could be achieved in the sub-6GHz cellular bands as well as sub-60GHz and sub-30GHz mmWave bands. 5G technologies that support data-rates in excess of 1GB/s could be implemented in any of the existing bands as long as they yield. RF front-end, transceiver, and modem architectures that could offer the highest (by humans noticeable) data-rate in handsets would be the obvious winner, no matter what RF frequency they ‘pick’ from the air. In this presentation, the sub-6GHz cellular transceiver architectures would be compared to the sub-60GHz and sub-30GHz mmWave transceiver architectures in terms of performance, area, power consumption, and cost. Could the big bandwidth of the mmWave design win over the high-order modulation schemes of the well-established cellular design? Or would the cellular and mmWave transceivers have to co-exist and co-work together for the best of both worlds? These are just two of the questions that will be addressed in this presentation.

Gigabit Wireless LAN is here! Sustained, multi-client, Gbp/s WLAN is entering wide-spread deployment in enterprise networks. WLAN is on the cusp of being able to replace wired Ethernet as we know it, not only in consumer application, but also in enterprise and industrial applications. This talk will discuss the key techniques that enables Gbp/s WLAN transceiver, including digital-intensive circuit architectures in PLL and transmitter design. Built-in, self-calibration necessary to obtain a high throughput will also be discussed.

Wireless devices support multiple functionalities using a multitude of standards. In the WiFi ecosystem, for example, we have seen the addition of the new Gb/s flavors of 802.11ac and 802.11ad (WiGig). Hence, new WiFi-supporting devices have to deliver superior performance in each of these standards, and should operate seamlessly from standard to standard. These requirements demand replacing traditional designs with innovative solutions at system, architecture and circuit levels. In this work, we tackle the physical level challenges with a configurable transmitter architecture. This work demonstrates the concept of a single-PHY transmitter baseband architecture for 11ac and 11ad standards, as a supporting example. The core of the proposed transmitter is a configurable mixed-signal digital-to-analog converter, which has been fabricated in 28 nm FDSOI technology. It embeds semi-digital filtering tailored for four WiFi modes (20, 40, 80 and 160 MHz bandwidths) and the 1.76 GHz bandwidth of the 60 GHz WiGig standard.

The CubeSat platform was initially created by Jordi Puig-Suari and Robert Twiggs as an educational tool to provide a full end-to-end mission design and space-flight experience to university students pursuing two to four year undergraduate and graduate level studies. Since the CubeSat’s invention and subsequent release of the CubeSat Design Specification it has been widely and successfully adopted by many educational and research institutions. These institutions have used CubeSats to space qualify new technology and provide new science measurements to many under-served research communities. Recently, CubeSat’s have gained more traction in commercial and other governmental sectors focused on operational use. This has driven a need for new capabilities that still adhere to CubeSat standards while keeping with the risk tolerant design nature that allows for innovative mission designs and technology demonstrations.

During the past ten years, the number and type advanced device technologies deployed in the space environment has increased dramatically. This trend has been magnified by the number of organizations designing, building, and deploying platforms to low-Earth orbit and other locations in the Solar System. This increase has been driven by many factors, including ever-improving radiation-hardened by design (RHBD) techniques as well as serendipitous radiation tolerance in advanced technology nodes. Furthermore, many current and future aerospace applications demand capabilities that can only be realized with device feature sizes at and below 40 nm, 3-dimensional integration, and other techniques considering the substantial constraints placed on size, weight, power, and cost. In addition to application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and more traditional radiation-hardened components, many aerospace organizations are also expanding their use of automotive-grade devices and other enhanced commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) offerings in order to expand the design space while trying to constrain risk. While advanced semiconductor device technologies enable many critical applications, their utilization in the space environment requires special considerations.

Silicon metal-semiconductor field effect transistors (MESFETs) can be fabricated using commercial SOI CMOS technologies without changing the CMOS process flow. With no fragile gate oxide, the silicon MESFETs can be designed to have breakdown voltages in excess of 30V, greatly exceeding that of the baseline MOSFETs. MESFETs with gate lengths as short as 150nm have current drives of >1A with fT and fmax greater than 30 and 45GHz respectively. They are also radiation tolerant (TID>300krad) and capable of operating over a wide temperature range (-180° to +150°C) making them ideally suited for space applications in extreme environments. This presentation will focus on the DC and RF characteristics of MESFETs fabricated using a 45nm SOI CMOS technology. Data from total ionizing dose measurements will be presented along with a wide temperature range TOM3 Spice model. The ability to integrate enhanced voltage MESFETs on the same die as ULSI CMOS has the potential for significant savings in size, weight and cost for space electronics, with the added benefit of increased reliability. As demonstrators for the integrated 45nm SOI CMOS-MESFET technology we will describe results from an unconditionally stable low-dropout regulator for point-of-load DC power management, and an RF power amplifier with Pout > 1W.

The challenge of developing state-of-the-art CMOS microelectronics for space applications is mitigating the effects of the space radiation environment. Radiation-hardened-by-Design (RHBD) has been demonstrated as an effective approach to leverage advances in commercial integrated circuit fabrication to provide improved performance, power, availability, and reliability for space applications. RHBD has demonstrated continued success in using design methods to achieve high levels of radiation hardness. New approaches to hardening mixed-signal designs that take advantage of the properties of modern CMOS processes have been developed. Examples of applications, development considerations, and analysis techniques will be covered in this session.

In this discussion we will first introduce the exciting Earth science, planetary science and astrophysics investigations that are performed by JPL and NASA at millimeter-wave and terahertz frequencies, describing several recent results by instruments operating in this wavelength regime. Then we will then discuss the important role CMOS system-on-chip (SoC) technology now plays in these instruments, and the fundamental challenges (noise, multiplicative-effects, radiation effects) that CMOS based instruments face in delivering the level of fidelity required for NASA’s science investigations. The talk will discuss two examples of CMOS SoC based instruments from recent NASA programs including a 600 GHz side-band separated spectrometer for investigation of Europa, Titan, Enceladus, and a 100 GHz in-situ spectrometer system for investigation of comet and asteroid volatiles targeting the planned NASA Comet Surface Sample Return (CSSR) mission.

RHBD is a not just a library or physical solution, in order to address mission goals (radiation, extreme environments compared to commercial), a system-level approach needs to be considered in the SoC. Understanding the use environment, both from a reliability and radiation response, drives the optimized design approach at both the macro/standard cell, and logic/behavioral levels. Physical modifications are required for some missions and we have migrated commercial IP to work in space applications in many technology nodes (multiple approaches to achieve a range of hardness levels). Integration of functions covering multiple frequencies from RF to KHz, also presents design challenges while maintaining space application goals. A discussion of these trades and approaches will be discussed.

This presentation discusses the benefits associated with the design of modular, scalable mm-wave PolyStrata™ based circuits for commercial and aerospace applications. The additive PolyStrata™ process technology was developed under the 3D-MERFS DARPA-funded research program to improve the performance and reduce the packaging cost of mm-wave systems. The technology characteristics include low loss, high component density, 3D-stacking and high isolation. 15 years later, this technology has become a key enabler for next generation Millimeter Wave (MMW) radar and communications systems. Presented herein are examples of a variety of modules, ranging from ultra-compact, low loss mm-wave filters qualified for space applications to complete PolyStrata phased array developed for NASA next generation instruments for remote sensing. Also discussed is the incorporation of PolyStrata™ passives components in T/R modules that improve the efficiency and increase power output.

Ohm’s Law forces the efficiency of linear amplifiers to remain below 50%, often well below 50%, leaving any practical amplifier achieving higher efficiency to not use linear circuitry.  Many such proposals have been put forth over the past century.  These are briefly reviewed and collected into 3 major groups.  One major impediment to efficient RF power amplifiers is the signal modulation types that have been selected by the Standards working groups.  Why this is so, and what physics allows in getting around this problem, is discussed.

High PAPR signals such as LTE-A cellular communications present a potential poor trade-off between efficiency and linearity. Power supply modulation is one of several techniques that can avoid this trade-off, and achieve high efficiency and with adequate linearity. This workshop presentation will focus primarily on the polar modulation method for both base-stations and mobile terminals (e.g. smart phones). Si circuits for supply modulators will be discussed, and how they can be applied to various classes of microwave power amplifiers (e.g. Class AB, F, etc). Both analog and digital envelope power modulators will be compared. Linearization methods will be presented tailored to this technique. The challenge of modulation bandwidth limitation will be addressed with several solutions. Finally, multi-carrier systems with potential digital beam steering applications using envelope-of-the-envelope techniques will be shown.

Digital Power Amplifiers (DPAs) such as the switched capacitor PA (SCPA) have provided a significant level of flexibility in SoC design. SCPAs provide a flexible, linear output, while also providing a digital interface that can interact directly with the DSP. In this talk, we will detail several SCPA architectures and provide example designs and some pros and cons for their use in varying wireless transmission applications.

An outphasing digital transmitter including open-loop delay-based phase modulator and class-D switching PA is presented. The PA uses a transformer power combining configuration with reduced losses at back-off power; class-D PA operation takes advantage of switching speed offered by CMOS technology scaling to achieve good linearity performance. System level topics, including digital front end line-up and phase modulation, will be discussed. Measurement from a 32nm test chip of the TX operating in 2.4GHz band with WiFi 20/40MHz signal will be shown as well as system simulation for 5-6GHz band with 80/160MHz signals.

Doherty power amplifier (PA) architecture offers a unique back-off PA efficiency enhancement behavior, which is highly desirable for amplifying broadband modulation signals with high peak-to-average power ratios (PAPR). Recently, there is an increasing interest to employ Doherty PA architectures for a wide variety of mobile communication and wireless connectivity applications. In this talk, we will first present an overview of benefits and design challenges of Doherty PAs. We will then present several CMOS mixed-signal Doherty PA examples that leverage both digital PA operations and analog PA techniques. These mixed-signal Doherty PAs enable precise controls of the Doherty main/auxiliary amplifiers to achieve optimum Doherty "active load-modulation" and optimum back-off efficiency enhancement. Moreover, the reconfigurability of these mixed-signal Doherty PAs enables PA linearity enhancement and robust Doherty performance under antenna load variations. These mixed-signal Doherty PAs can also be combined with other PA techniques to achieve hybrid PA architectures for further PA efficiency and linearity enhancement. In addition, we will also present the use of Doherty architecture in mm-wave linear PA designs for multi-band 5G applications. Supporting multiple 5G bands, such mm-wave linear Doherty PA enhances average PA efficiency, relaxes thermal management in 5G massive MIMO systems, and amplifies high-order QAM modulations without any digital-predistortion (DPD).

High bandwidth signals such as 802.11ax for wifi and future 5G networks demand a very high linearity and memory less PA. This very high spec is for the first time not only challenging CMOS PAs but also all GaAs and SiGe PAs as well. In this discussion subject of memory effects and its mechanism that leads itself to serious loss of efficiency and power delivery in high power PAs is explored.

The performance of efficiency optimized amplifiers (Class AB, Class J, Doherty or Envelope Tracking) can be enhanced significantly by digital signal processing algorithms, especially in linearity (EVM) and spectral regrowth (ACLR). At one level, performing crest factor reduction (CFR) assists the entire Tx chain, by not pushing the blocks to the signal peaks (to unreasonable levels) only to saturate the power amplifier (PA) further down the chain. There various digital predistortion (DPD) techniques that are used to compensate for PA distortion: memoryless compression, compression with memory, coordination of multiple drive signals, just to list a few.  These algorithms, strategies and approaches will be reviewed in this workshop talk.

This talk will give an overview of current ULP wireless solutions in the healthcare domain as well as present an outlook to potential future trends. First different wireless application areas in the healthcare domain, both for in-body and around-the-body use cases, will be presented. Second, a summary of existing ultra low power wireless communication technologies for those as well as an outlook to emerging wireless technologies in the field will be given.

The body channel communication (BCC) which uses the human body as a communication channel hase been getting more and more attention due to its good transceiver performance compared with traditional RF communiation including narrow band (NB) or ultra wide band (UWB). Thanks to the good performance of the BCC, the BCC was included in the IEEE 802.15.6 WBAN standard (which is called human body communication, HBC). In this talk, I will introduce you the BCC including the communication principle, channel analysis, optimized transceiver design and implementation results. Also, we will have a chance to discuss the future application of the BCC.

Radar technologies have been recently investigated in healthcare of which the general public will benefit in terms of diagnostics, treatment, and detection of emergency situation. They represent the new emerging solution to promote the health both in home and clinical environments, and are also predicted to proliferate in the next years. This is in line with the development of the Internet of the Things. Although such remote sensing has the limitation that only biomedical parameters that are based on mechanical movements and/or distance can be monitored, radar operation allows characterizing already various biomedical parameters of strong interest in several applications with the great advantage on being non-invasive. This presentation discusses system requirements, design challenges, practical limitations, and solutions of recent advances in health monitoring using radar technologies, presenting also some experimental results.

Implantable medical devices such as devices for Cardiac Rhythm Management (Pacemakers and ICD’s) and Neuromodulation treat a wide range of medical conditions and have benefitted tremendously from the advancement of wireless communications. The recent introduction of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communication capability in these devices offers further value from both the patient and physician’s perspective. This presentation will touch on some of the benefits that BLE provides while detailing aspects of the Bluetooth Low Energy standard. Some of the technical challenges of implementing a BLE transceiver in an implantable medical device will be highlighted, such as power constraints and performance requirements. Finally, this presentation will conclude with a discussion on future opportunities made possible with BLE communication.

Communicating to within and around the body presents many unique challenges associated with the small size, very low power and attenuation of human tissue. The key requirements, regulations, standards and system issues will be presented. The capabilities of new technology for communicating to medical devices will be presented. Facilitating developments include recent advances in low power architectures and the acceptance of a world-wide band for medical implant communication in the 401-406 MHz (Medical Implant Communication Service) range. Further new spectrum rule changes support medical device operation at higher frequencies such as allocations neighboring the worldwide 2.4 GHz ISM band. Wireless medical communications are enabling new applications and improved health-care with examples presented from a range of areas including endoscopic camera capsule, remote monitoring of implantable defibrillators, neuro-stimulators, hearing aids, and blood oximeters.

Over the last two decades, computers have evolved from the laptop to the smartphone to today’s cm-scale IoT devices. At each step, the volume has reduced by 2-3 orders of magnitude, and with it so has the size of the battery. However, the functionality has remained constant or even increased, a trend that shows little sign of slowing. The next logical step in computing are millimeter-scale devices with similar features found in today’s smartphones. With thin-film batteries, CMOS scaling, low-power sensors, and advanced packaging, these mm-scale devices have now become a reality. This presentation focuses on recent advances in wireless communication circuits, antennas, and protocols for mm-scale sensor nodes, for implantable and on-body applications. Challenges resulting from miniature antennas, thin-film batteries, and operation from a

An energy-efficient radio SoC with RFFE (RF front-end), DBB (digital baseband) and MCU (microcontroller) for medical/ healthcare applications in the 315/400 MHz bands is presented. The SoC is compliant with the IEEE 802.15.6 standard in the 402-405MHz MICS (Medical Implant Communication Service) band and the 420-450MHz medical telemetry band, and also supports a proprietary high data rate mode (3.6Mb/s) to support applications such as EEG (electrocardiogram). The ADPLL (all-digital phase-locked loop)-based two-point modulation transmitter is adopted to support wideband modulation beyond the PLL bandwidth. The total power consumption of RX and TX are 3.5mW (3.6Mb/s, -77dBm sensitivity) and 3.0mW (3.6Mb/s, -16dBm PA output) respectively enabling energy efficiency of less than 1nJ/bit.

Bioelectronic modulation of neural activity has the potential to provide therapeutic control over diverse organ functions addressing unmet clinical needs.  Towards this goal, significant progress has been made in the development of miniaturized electronics, and high resolution and mechanically flexible neural interfaces for both research and clinical systems.  Their long-term access to neural structures, however, remains constrained by technological challenges in powering the device.  In this talk, I will describe two new methods for electromagnetic energy transfer that exploit near-field interactions with biological tissue to wirelessly power tiny devices anywhere in the body.  I will discuss engineering and experimental challenges to realizing such interfaces, including a pacemaker that is smaller than a grain of rice, a conformal vagus nerve stimulator, and a fully internalized neuromodulation platform.  These devices can act as bioelectronic medicines, capable of precisely modulating local activity, that may be more effective treatments than drugs which act globally throughout the body.

Next generation communication systems (5G and beyond) seek to bridge the gap between the projected demand and supply of mobile data traffic through a combination of new system techniques and access to new spectrum below 6 GHz and especially in several millimeter-wave bands from 15 GHz to 86 GHz. In these systems, the design of frequency synthesizers that can access several such bands with low phase noise, spur levels and frequency granularity remains a critical block. Furthermore, “Massive MIMO” – which consists of a large number of antennas at the access point – is a promising technology to meet the high data rate and quality of service requirements of 5G wireless systems. Achieving stringent phase-noise specifications and scalable LO distribution to maintain phase coherence across the different units in the MIMO array is a critical challenge. This workshop will present the latest trends in the design of such synthesizers.

Modern wireless communication systems require agile support for an increasing number carrier frequencies. The objective of this work is to build a single PLL which is sufficiently flexible such that it can be used in a field programmable radio, or a radio system capable of being reconfigured in the field to any of a diverse set of radio communication standards. An obstacle to producing such a reconfigurable radio is that the noise, frequency, and bandwidth requirements for different standards vary substantially, in turn necessitating multiple PLLs, each optimized for a particular application. To meet the goals of our research effort, it is necessary to produce a PLL which is reconfigurable in multiple dimensions yet maintains sufficiently strong performance (in terms of metrics such as phase noise and locking time) such that the resulting synthesizer is still competitive with the best-performing single-application CMOS PLLs, and can therefore effectively replace a set of application specific PLLs. This presentation will provide an overview of recently demonstrated VCO and PLL designs/architectures which have made the above-described vision of a highly flexible monolithic PLL possible.

The phase accuracy of CMOS circuits for clock generation and distribution is fundamentally limited by component mismatch and noise. Both phase mismatch and phase noise, and hence timing jitter, can be improved by admittance scaling at the cost of power consumption. To benchmark and optimize circuits in a power efficient way, it is useful to define a Figure of Merit (FoM) that normalizes for this admittance level scaling effect. Based on this Jitter-Power FoM several circuit techniques for accurate clock generation will be discussed, i.e.: 1) Multi-phase clock generation, comparing a delay locked loop versus a shift register or divider 2) The choice of the logic family, comparing dynamic transmission gate logic with current mode logic 3) Digital to Time Conversion (DTC) and its use in frequency synthesis

Modern large scale SOCs combine high performance radio IP along with large ASIC content. Meanwhile the requirement for high performance PLLs put more constraints on the design with limited power supply choices, close proximity to noisy ASIC blocks and large variation of junction temperatures. Multiple standards requires multiple PLLs to coexist on the same SOC. Balancing the often conflicting needs among different IP blocks requires the frequency synthesizer to be designed and optimized at architecture level. This talk covers design considerations in the frequency synthesis of the modern CMOS SOC design including tradeoff in frequency coverage, tuning range, spur and coupling between different PLLs.

Emerging wireless networks at RF and mm-wave are addressing the demand for higher network capacity by focusing on multiple-element arrays for interference mitigation and for meeting challenging link budgets. Maintaining coherence between elements is critical for such phased-arrays/MIMO systems, particularly as arrays evolve towards large number of elements such as massive MIMO base-stations. In addition, wide range of operating frequencies require wide LO tuning range. Hence, scalable, power-efficient, frequency generation and distribution approaches that support low phase noise and wide tuning range for large-element arrays are of interest at RF and mm-wave. In this talk, we will present a broad overview of approaches for LO generation and phase coherence in large-scale arrays. Techniques for achieving wide tuning range will be presented along with trade-offs associated with traditional clock distribution schemes. A scalable clock distribution approach that ensures low phase noise and jitter with increasing number of elements will also be presented in the context of an implementation targeted at emerging mmwave 5G networks.

Advanced design techniques for CMOS mm-Wave phased-array frequency synthesis will be presented. Firstly, in a 4-path LO generation system for 60-GHz phased-array receivers, a frequency tripler with a proposed locking-range enhancement technique is proposed to relax both the frequency and the phase shift of injection-locked-oscillator-based phase shifters for high linearity and low power. Fabricated in a 65-nm CMOS process, the 4-path LO generation system measures linear phase range > ±90°, amplitude variation < ±0.4 dB, phase resolution of 22.5° while drawing 85 mA at 1V. With a successive-approximation algorithm to perform automatic phase detection and tuning, the maximum phase errors is reduced from 22.0° to 1.5°. Secondly, a 0.6-V 14.1-mW 100-GHz 65-nm transformer-based phase-locked loop (PLL) with embedded phase shifters is demonstrated with phase resolution of 3.9°, amplitude variation < ±0.1 dB, and phase noise of -88 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset from 100 GHz.

Digital fractional-n PLLs are a promising choice for frequency synthesizers for wireless SOCs because of their potential for area reduction, process-voltage temperature (PVT) insensitive loop dynamics, inherent re-configurability and ease of porting from one technology node to the next. A number of examples have been demonstrated in recent literature for cellular and connectivity RFICs in the sub-6GHz bands. However, it is not trivial to extend such DPLL based frequency synthesizers to meet the stringent requirements of the 5G standard. The emerging 5G standard seeks to extend wireless technology into new use cases and markets and to address an anticipated ~1000X increase in demand for bandwidth. It is expected to incorporate (a) incremental enhancements to 4G cellular (higher order modulations, more channel bandwidth/bonding), (b) LTE and WiFi aggregation, (c) massive MIMO systems, and (d) operation in new mm-wave frequency bands, in order to improve the data rates, latency and quality of service. Each of these presents unique challenges to frequency synthesis. In this talk we will present an overview of circuits and architectures to achieve the better phase noise performance expected in 5G. We will next discuss approaches to realizing power efficient DPLL synthesizers in the mm-wave bands. Finally, extending frequency synthesis to cover massive MIMO systems requires a scalable solution. So we will conclude with a discussion of scalable LO generation implementations.

In All Digital PLLs for Frequency Synthesis efforts are made in designing the TDC/BPD and DCO with low quantization noise and high performance capabilities. Minimum effort has been put in to the design of the loop filter. Mainly, the Filter remains a digital representation of the Analog implementation used in the well known Analog PLLs. This session will analyze from a theoretical point of view the required characteristics of a digital Loop filter to maximize ADPLL performances when a Single Bit phase detector is used.

[Backup speaker]

mm Wave frequencies are a new frontier for 5G but have lack of clarity until WRC2019. The use cases should define where mm Wave plays a role. A prominent example is the 2018 Olympics in Korea intend to use 28GHz. Nevertheless there are challenges ahead in regulation, standardization and implementation which require common efforts from the whole value chain to make it happen.

by Intel

In this presentation we focus on trends of power amplifiers and PLLs being two of the most discussed RF components within 3GPP towards standardization of 5G at mmW frequencies. The decreasing PA output power and power-added efficiency for increasing carrier frequencies challenge the choice of waveforms and spectral emission requirements. PLL performance degrades with increasing carrier frequencies and affects attainable error vector magnitude and the choice of the 5G numerology. Furthermore, the use of array antenna systems puts additional constraints on RF components, e.g. in terms of accuracy and tracking over the array. We discuss the present state of 3GPP 5G specifications (Release 15) and its implications on requirements for power amplifiers and PLLs.

The rapid growth of wireless data drives new design challenges for RF chipset and handheld/mobile device manufacturers along with carriers. The massive data traffic to be supported by wireless networks requires the development of cost effective high speed and low power wireless link (both from end user and network side). To address this challenge, millimeter wave technologies (WiGig standard at 60 GHz, backhauling in E band …) have emerged as promising solutions in order to offer multi gigabit per second data rate at low power. Moreover, the possibility to integrate those wireless systems using silicon based technologies (either CMOS or BiCMOS) enables to offer cost effective solutions required by consumer markets. But millimeter wave technologies do not only require cost effective RF ICs achieved in advanced silicon technologies, high performances and low cost packaging and antenna technologies are also key issues. This talk will illustrate how industrial organic packaging technology and standard FR4 based HDI any layer PCB technology (used for smartphone board) can help to develop innovative and cost effective mmw packages and antennas (focusing here on 60 GHz applications).

In the last two decades data-rates in wireless communication systems have been increasing exponentially. This trend is continuing with the fifth generation of wireless systems (5G) that will require peak rates in excess of Gb/s for many users, several hundred thousands of simultaneous connections for massive sensor deployments, and substantially improved spectral efficiency. This workshop is focused on current state-of-the-art of 5G band and future directions of the key circuit techniques and system architectures for base station or between the Handset, or other portable devices, and the cell, or mini-cell, micro-cell, pico-cell base stations. All aspects covering normalization Systems, Architecture, and low power design solutions for beam orientation will be discussed.

In this presentation, possible 5G frequency bands will be discussed from the viewpoint of device technology, data rate, communication distance, array size, etc. Some millimeter-wave CMOS transceiver will be also introduced, achieving tens of Gbps data rate.

: This talk will highlight both phased-array front-ends and tunable receivers for use in mm-wave 5G systems. One key requirement for mm-wave arrays is achieving improved power efficiency. For basestations, this can reduce cooling requirements whereas for user equipment, this can be translated into reduced array size. With this goal in mind, harmonic-tuned SiGe power amplifiers at 28-GHz will first be presented which achieve 35% peak PAE and up to 13% PAE at 6 dB back off. To further improve back-off efficiency, a dual-vector Doherty beamformer is introduced and demonstrated at 60 GHz in SiGe BiCMOS. This beamformer achieves 7% PAE at 6-dB back-off and allows for a reconfigurable linearity/efficiency trade-off. Another goal for mm-wave systems is achieving compact, low-power, and widely tunable performance. Towards these ends, a mixer-first receiver will be presented which can be tuned across 20 to 30 GHz and achieves 7-8 dB noise figure at 41 mW power consumption.

The fastest growing wireless communications market has seen dramatic changes in both the requirements on, and the capabilities of the radio to support wireless connections. Tunable RF technologies are enabling new frontiers for reconfigurable RF front ends. Miniaturized multifunctional frequency-agile devices are demanded to support multiple communication standards in current and next generation military and commercial applications. While active components in RF front-ends are experiencing higher levels of co-integration, there is a technological barrier for further integration to achieve miniaturized communication systems due to large amount of discrete RF passives on board. This talk will present the development of frequency agile and fully electrically tunable miniaturized RF devices with the integration of ferromagnetic and ferroelectric thin films and related techniques enabling multifunctional and adaptive radios. First, the need for adaptive and reconfigurable frequency control components in next generation wireless devices will be described. Previous tuning techniques (e.g., RF MEMS) and their performance will be briefly reviewed, followed by application of these components in adaptive wireless systems. Design of novel slow wave structures and their RF applications will be discussed for further miniaturization of RF passives. And finally, integration of slow-wave structures with nano-scale ferromagnetic and ferroelectric (PZT) thin film patterns will be demonstrated and investigated for their efficacy in developing fully electrically tunable RF components (e.g., filter, antenna). Strategies to improve RF characteristics (e.g., Ferromagnetic Resonance Frequency and tuning range) of the integrated thin films will be fully addressed and discussed.

With ever-increasing development of the modern communications (i.e., 5G wireless, internet-of-everything, and so on), compact and practical transceivers to meet the requirements of such system remain as great challenges. Thus, integrated passive circuits with high performance as key elements are dramatically demanded and highly developed based on novel miniaturized structures and specific technologies, which can be utilized for the implementation of the RF, microwave, millimeter-wave, and THz communication systems. In this talk, novel integrated passive circuits for RF, microwave, millimeter-wave, and sub-THz applications are introduced for modern communication with enhanced performance. First, the on-chip stepped-impedance inductor with an adjusted high quality-factor is analyzed and employed for RF VCO design with low phase-noise performance. Secondly, based on such type inductor, a stacked stepped-impedance transformer is implemented for the wideband matching network with high passive efficiency for a microwave power amplifier design with a wideband operation (i.e., 3.5-9.5 GHz). Thirdly, a novel on-chip 3D embedded capacitor is introduced for mm-wave application, i.e., 60 GHz DCO. Finally, a new slow-wave sub-THz resonant cell is introduced for the dual-resonance (i.e., 237 and 380 GHz) allocation for the dual-band sub-THz application. All the passive circuits mentioned above are fabricated using the silicon-based technology (i.e., CMOS and SiGe). Good agreements between the measurements and simulations are achieved, which verify the feasibility of the proposed circuits for the practical applications.

Future big-data oriented commuting requires energy efficient I/O links for data migration. Silicon photonic interconnect has great performance for each individual optical component under different process technology but has limited performance after integration. This talk will address this challenge by exploring electrical interconnect solution at Terahertz with source, transmission and detector all realized in CMOS. However, the big problem here is the poor output power of source and huge crosstalk of transmission at Terahertz in CMOS. We show that with the use of meta-device (meta-material, meta-surface, spoof surface-plasmon-polariton), one can effectively manipulate the EM-field such that in-phase power combing can be utilized to combine output power (3-5dBm) of coupled oscillators; and surface-plasmonic wave can be utilized for low-crosstalk (-21dB) on-chip transmission. Demonstrated chips with measurements at 140GHz and 280GHz by standard 65nm CMOS process. What is more, the utilization of meta-device for imaging and sensing at THz in CMOS will also be briefly reported.

This talk will explore the major challenges for radio-frequency micro-electromechanical systems (RF MEMS) and ways to overcome them. MEMS is ubiquitous. For example, a smartphone can have many MEMS components including microphones/speakers, camera focus/vibration controls, micro-projectors, silicon clocks, position/motion sensors, pressure/humidity/temperature sensors, etc. In comparison, RF MEMS have not been widely used despite their promising performance. In fact, like many new technologies, RF MEMS followed the Gartner hype cycle to reach the peak of inflated expectations around 1995, only to crash to the trough of disillusionment around 2010. However, this also implies that they are now on the slope of enlightenment and may soon reach the plateau of productivity if the major challenges can be overcome in a timely manner. The initial hype of RF MEMS originates from their inherent advantages in terms of lower loss, higher isolation, wider bandwidth, better linearity, and lower power consumption compared to silicon CMOS transistors. However, the hype quickly turned into disillusionment mainly due to the reliability issue. Over the following decade, the reliability issue was mostly overcome by careful choice of design, material and bias conditions, more for capacitive switches than ohmic switches. The main challenge then turned into a yield issue, which was largely overcome by fabrication through standard CMOS foundries instead of dedicated MEMS foundries. Now, the main issue of RF MEMS is insufficient performance advantage to overcome the entry barrier faced by any new technology in competition with the entrenched CMOS technology, such as in existing 3G/4G smartphone sockets. In this case, the savior appears to be the necessity for 5G wireless systems to expand above 6 GHz, which can only enlarge the inherent advantage of RF MEMS, especially capacitive MEMS. However, RF MEMS need to quickly increase their integration level with CMOS circuits. Otherwise, RF MEMS will risk inheriting the curse previously placed on compound semiconductors as “the technology of the future and it will always be.”

Due to its low insertion loss, high isolation, high linearity, wide bandwidth, and near-zero dc power consumption, radio frequency micro-electromechanical (RF-MEMS) switches have been an emerging technology that can be used in automated test equipment (ATE), wide-band instrumentation, switching matrice, digital attenuators, satellite switching networks and defense systems to achieve superior system performance. Compared with capacitive RF-MEMS switches, metal contact type switches have large bandwidth from dc to RF frequency and are favored in many wide-band applications. However, the reliability issues associated with RF-MEMS contact switches have been a barrier for wider adoption of the technology. In particular, existing RF-MEMS switches exhibit poor hot-switching life-time due to dielectric breakdown and field emission. In this talk, we present several design methodologies for drastically improving the hot-switching reliability of contact-type radio frequency micro-electromechanical (RF-MEMS) switches. In the proposed design, sacrificial contacts are used together with low-resistance contacts to significantly reduce the electric field across the latter. The lower field strength drastically reduces the contact degradation associated with field induced material transfer. Theoretical and numerical modeling show that the proposed protection scheme introduces minimal impact on the switch’s RF performance. To realize the protection scheme, we introduce a novel mechanical design that allows the correct protection actuation sequence to be realized using a single actuator and bias electrode. As a demonstration, several 0–40 GHz RF-MEMS switches are fabricated using a robust copper sacrificial layer technique. Compared with unprotected switches, the protected switch design exhibits over 100 times improvement in hot-switching lifetime. In particular, we demonstrate 100–150 million cycle lifetime at 1W hot-switching and 50 million cycles at 2W hot-switching before catastrophic failure, measured in open-air lab environment. Further optimization of the structural design and contact materials is likely to further increase the hot-switching lifetime.

Integrated Passive Device (IPD) technology is a good platform for realizing compact high-Q passive components such as baluns, filters, couplers and transformers. In contrast to other multilayer technologies, that suffer from issues related to control of dimensions, the IPD technology allows the realization of relatively low cost passives with well controlled dimensions. The presentation shows examples of IPD passive devices fabricated in a commercial IPD foundry as well through the use of fabrication process developed in a university clean room. Examples of integrating IPD devices with BST technology to develop tunable IPD devices are also presented.

Recent advances in wireless communication systems call for RF front-ends with multi-standard and multi-functional operability which in turn create the need for RF filters with small physical size, low-loss and flexible transfer function. Acoustic-wave resonators have been the key technology of these systems due to their unique advantages of highly-miniaturized volume and high quality factor (Q). However, their operation is limited by narrow fractional bandwidth (FBW, kt2), ii) small physical size, iii) high-Q (1,000-10,000) iv) arbitrary transfer function synthesis (i.e, bandpass, bandstop, absorptive) and iv) tunable response. Within the course of this workshop, various AWLR-based filtering topologies will be presented in terms of RF design synthesis (coupling matrix approach) and experimental performance with a major focus on bandpass- and bandstop-type responses. Moreover, the RF design of multi-band bandpass filters with various levels of reconfigurability will be reported. Absorptive-bandstop filters with highly selective and tunable equi-ripple stopbands will also be presented.

This talk will discuss about the great potential of RF and microwaves frequency micro-systems to achieve dielectric spectroscopy measurement on individual micro-particles and their promising use for biological cell analysis and discrimination. We will review the latest innovations and results achievements based on passive microwave microfluidic sensors that allows nowadays possible accurate dielectric properties characterization of biological sample up to single cells. Achieved electromagnetic signatures measurements may address some promising biological issues especially in cancer research. Hence, we will show that such measurements, without requiring any conventional cell labelling, could be used to discriminate cells and be helpful to early inform on potential cell aggressiveness degree for example.

Microwave resonators have proved their capability as sensing devices in a wide range of applications such as lab on chip, environmental sustainability, and industrial applications, not only for analyses in the solid and liquid phase, but also recently in a gaseous environment. Planar microstrip resonators made from split ring resonators (SRRs) have shown relatively sharper resonances and concomitantly increased sensitivity due to their higher coupling to the surrounding signal lines. These sensors are amenable to miniaturization, automation, mass production, and wireless interconnection due to CMOS compatibility, low cost and a facile fabrication process. Such microwave resonators also offer noninvasive sensing through contact-less probing, which adds to their flexibility of usage and maneuverability for in situ characterization. Since SRR based passive sensors have a low response time and can almost instantly translate changes in the environment of study into measurement quantities, they can be used as real-time sensors. Their unique capability of detecting small complex permittivity in non-contact fashion distinguishes them from other sensor technologies. In this workshop design and analysis of such sensors for gas and chemical sensing, biomedical applications and nanomaterial characterization will be discussed.

(Note: This is not the official abstract, but the workshop coordinators description of what the talk will cover - Nathan) This talk will discuss the different wireless standards, both present and future, that will be major factors in the IoT.

This talk presents holistic system analysis, design and optimization approaches to realize ultra-low power (ULP) communication for energy-optimized Internet-of-Things (IoT). A truly energy-optimal IoT wireless connectivity can only be obtained by a cross-layer optimization that requires a full characterization of the complete end-to-end system. Addressing this critical technical challenge in emerging ULP IoT applications, an interdisciplinary research that spans wireless communication, signal processing, and VLSI circuits will be discussed in this talk. Bridging the noticeable gap between communications/signal processing theories and VLSI circuit implementations, this talk introduces holistic solutions obtained by a rigorous theoretical analysis that considers practical implementation issues such as non-idealities in circuits and energy constraints in signal processing. To demonstrate the proposed cross-layer system design approach, an energy-autonomous wireless communication for ultra-small (i.e., millimeter-scale) sensor nodes will be presented. In addition, software-defined radio architectures for multi-standard-compliant IoT communication, WiFi / Bluetooth back-channel communication schemes to interconnect heterogeneous networks, and an ULP 100m-range cm-scale accuracy indoor localization solutions for RFID tags will be discussed.

This talk presents the progress of LPWA (Low Power Wide Area) technologies, especially NB-IoT. Why NB-IoT is the best choice of operators will be presented. How to construct a commercial NB-IoT from the existing telecom equipment will be introduced. The choice of frequency band will be introduced. An end-to-end total solution of NB-IoT is presented and different application cases of NB-IoT will be introduced as well.

(Note: This is not the official abstract, but the workshop coordinators description of what the talk will cover - Nathan) A discussion on multi-standard low power radios. These radios are designed to have low power and are capable of communicating over multiple standards.

Ultra-low-power IoT radios need to balance a difficult trade-off between energy efficiency and spectral efficiency to simultaneously enable long battery life while also enabling reliable communication in bands with severe spectral congestion. However, nearly all prior-art ultra-low-power radios communicate with spectrally inefficient schemes like OOK or FSK, as these modulation schemes facilitate low-complexity, energy-efficient designs. This presentation will explore the design of new transmitter and receiver architectures that enable high-complexity modulations at high efficiency. Importantly, designs will be restricted to CMOS to ensure low-cost radio integration into next-generation IoT devices.

The exponential growth in the semiconductor industry has enabled computers to pervade our everyday lives, and as we move forward many of these computers will have form factors much smaller than a typical laptop or smartphone. Sensor nodes will soon be deployed ubiquitously, capable of capturing information of their surrounding environment. The next step is to connect all these different nodes together into an entire interconnected system. This “Internet of Things” (IoT) vision has incredible potential to change our lives commercially, societally, and personally. The backbone of IoT is the wireless sensor node, many of which will operate under very rigorous energy constraints with small batteries or no batteries at all. It has been shown that in sensor nodes, radio communication is one of the biggest bottlenecks to ultra-low power design. This research explores ways to reduce energy consumption in radios for wireless sensor networks, allowing them to run off harvested energy, while maintaining many qualities that will allow them to function in a real world, multi-user environment. Three different prototypes have been designed demonstrating these techniques. The first is a sensitivity-reduced nanowatt wake-up radio which allows a sensor node to actively listen for packets even when the rest of the node is asleep. CDMA codes and interference rejection reduce the potential for energy-costly false wake-ups. This radio consumes 116nW active power, which is less than the sleep power of a standard sensor node, while achieving a data rate of 12.5kbps and an energy/wake-up of 287.7pJ. The second prototype is a full transceiver for a body-worn EKG sensor node. Due to size and energy limitations, this transceiver is designed to have low instantaneous power and is able to receive 802.15.6 Wireless Body Area Network compliant packets. It uses asymmetric communication including a wake-up receiver based on the previous design, a 4µW UWB transmitter and a communication receiver that consumes 292µW. The communication receiver has 10 physical channels to avoid interference and demodulates coherent packets which is uncommon for low power radios, but dictated by the 802.15.6 standard. The third prototype is a long range transceiver capable of >1km communication range in the 433MHz band and able to interface with an existing commercial radio. A digitally assisted baseband demodulator was designed which enables the ability to perform bit-level as well as packet-level duty cycling which increases the radio's energy efficiency. At 2.5mA transmit and 378µW receive power, the transceiver is more than 20X more efficient than its commercial counterpart.

(Note: This is not the official abstract, but the workshop coordinators description of what the talk will cover - Nathan) A discussion on battery-free computing and communication. Topics include backscattering and creating devices that can leverage existing wireless spectrum to communicate for ultra-low power.

Automotive radar and thus ADAS based on radar has been in development over decades – E.g., Mercedes-Benz went into series production with 77 GHz radars for premium cars in 1998, until mid 2015 Infineon had sold 10 million 77 GHz chip-sets worldwide, Hella has delivered 20 million 24 GHz BSD (Blind Spot Detection) units until July 2016, or Mercedes-Benz installed more than 3,5 Mill. radar units in 2015. New cars out of today’s production are equipped with a lot of different ADAS units - based on radar, lidar or cameras. Specifically the semiconductor industry there are many challenges that are actively worked on. A system level hot debate is ongoing on the subject of central vs. de-centralized processing between the silicon supplier and integrators. Some OEMs, like Audi or GM, are preferring standardized central processing (zFAS – zentrales Fahrer Assistenz System) while companies like Infineon, NXP, TI or NI, as well as ADI are fostering the de-centralized approach. A topic of similar impact on the IC design is the choice of technology with a strong push to full CMOS solutions, instead of staying with SiGe for the RF. Another relevant subject is the entire area of sensor measurement – in production as well as in the after sales world. Above mentioned topics as well as other system level topics from the car manufacturer's perspective will be addressed is this talk.

In the last few years the automotive safety market gets more and more important especially radar based systems like adaptive cruise control, blind spot detection or emergency brake systems. To be able to handle the higher demand of automotive radar systems and to reduce the system costs at the same time, it is necessary to increase the level of integration, especially on the high frequency (HF) front end side. Traditionally the radar market was dominated by HF bipolar semiconductor based transceivers. For a higher level of integration and to fulfill the high demands of HF performance different technologies like bipolar complementary Metal-oxide-semiconductor (BiCMOS) are necessary. This shift in technology favored a more “digital” centric transceiver partitioning, although the traditional analog HF-architectures (e.g. HF VCO, power amplifier, HF mixers) remained in bipolar technology. It also offers the possibilities of new transmit modulation concepts, and especially in digital front end (DFE) enhanced receiver architectures. Another important aspect for higher integration is the growing demand on monitoring functionality with high coverage to fulfill the requirements for an ISO26262 compliant design. This and more conceptional aspects including an outlook will be part of this presentation during the workshop.

The talk will present the latest development in automotive radar phased-arrays at UCSD with emphasis on 77-81 GHz systems. We have built 32 and 64-element FMCW radar phased-arrays capable of high resolution imaging, and which allow for ADAS functions. The talk will present measured patterns and some recent radar results.

Vehicular radar is perhaps the most compelling application of silicon-based mmWave circuits and systems. While multiple-antenna systems, such as phased arrays, have been explored for mmWave vehicular radar and enable operation under weak-SNR conditions, the potential of communications-inspired MIMO techniques as applied to radar (or the so-called MIMO radar concept) has yet to be significantly explored. This presentation will initially discuss MIMO radar principles at the system-level, including space-time array processing, multi-beam MIMO radar, waveform trade-offs etc., and will then move on to CMOS implementations in the 22-29GHz frequency range.

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In spite of the very-high frequency of the application, the automotive industry is demanding state-of-the-art performances while ensuring low-cost and reliable solutions at the same time. To comply with this request silicon manufacturer are increasing the level of integration of MMICs embedding more and more functions in a single die. In this talk, we discuss advanced transceiver solutions in SiGe BiCMOS technology for both 24 and 77 GHz automotive radar applications. A general overview of architectures, circuits, and package solutions is described reporting recent products key performance. Finally, an outline of next challenges will be shortly discussed to provide the audience with the trend in this field of applications.

The increased interest in compact and low power automotive radar sensors toward fully autonomous vehicles pushes the research in 79GHz radar. While frequency and phase modulated radars in CMOS and SiGe have been successfully demonstrated, most of them do not integrate the mm-wave parts together with the necessary digital signal processing. This talk will discuss the integration of mm-Wave radar transceiver based on PMCW in advanced CMOS.

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Fully Depleted Silicon on Insulator (FD-SOI) is one of the alternatives that permits today to follow the Moore's law of CMOS integration for the 28nm node and beyond, while still dealing with fully planar transistors. Numerous presentations have presented over the several last years the benefits of this technology for an energy efficient integration of digital signal processing cores. This talk will focus on the benefits of FD-SOI technology for analog/RF/millimeter-wave and high-speed mixed signal circuits, by taking full advantage of wide voltage range body biasing tuning. For each category of circuits (analog/RF, mmW and high-speed), concrete design examples are given in order to highlight the main design features specific to FD-SOI.

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An All-digital PLL architecture targeting Wide-Area IoT Cat-M and NB-IOT standards enabling power transmitter co-integration exploits back-gate control in FD-SOI. Subsystem architecture through block designs achieve low power, small size and ease of SoC integration. A Digitally controlled 2.8-4 GHz oscillator prototype achieving a step size of 12kHz and 188 dB FoM, provides a basis for realizing this fully integrated 22nm subsystem.

This presentation will discuss the main features of FD-SOI CMOS technology and how to efficiently use its unique features for RF and mm-wave SoCs. We will overview the impact of the back-gate bias on the measured I-V, transconductance, fT and fMAX characteristics and compare the MAG of FDSOI MOSFETs with those of planar bulk CMOS and SiGe BiCMOS transistors through measurements up to 325 GHz. Finally, we will provide examples of LNA, mixer, switches, and PA circuit topologies and layouts that make efficient use of the back-gate bias to overcome the limitations associated with the low breakdown voltage of sub 28nm CMOS technologies.

RF data converters, currently in 16nm FinFET, for wireless and wired infrastructure applications. As well, this talk will cover low phase noise clock generation and distribution circuits

Designing highly sensitive RF/Analog circuits to operate in a hostile environment with extreme level of switching noise pose a huge challenge. This workshop presents a case study of a cascade PLL system for wide-band SerDes applications that support data rates from 1.25Gbps up to 26Gbps. The PLL system were implemented in the latest 10nm FINFET process technology. The various aspect of design issues were examined in this study, such as high flicker noise, switching noise interference, self-heating, low voltage supply, high mod-sense of FINFET varactor, etc.

For advanced node integration, small, inductor-free LNAs offer cost and SoC co-integration advantages. Exploiting the high self-gain and fT of FinFETs to minimize noise figure and current consumption while accommodating FinFET gate resistance presents a new design challenge. Noise cancelling topology benefits and trade-offs will be explored through a complete 14nm LPP-XL design example, through layout and extracted view results

FinFET process technologies offer lower chip area and lower supply voltages compared to planar CMOS devices. We will present circuit architectures, design challenges and measurements on RF building blocks (receivers, transmitters, synthesizers) designed in a 14nm FinFET technology for 4G (LTE) wireless cellular communication standards.

This talk will review what we actually mean when we say a measurement is uncertain. The talk will examine, in detail, some of the processes that can make measurements appear uncertain. The talk will also discuss the two main methodologies that are currently being used for evaluating the size of a measurement’s uncertainty. Both these approaches are currently recommended in international guidance documents for evaluating measurement uncertainty (i.e. as published by the International Organization for Standardization, ISO). However, these two approaches are incompatible with each other. The talk will show that the two approaches can produce very different values for the uncertainty of a measurement – in particular, for many measurements that are made at microwave frequencies.

Usually EM vendors try to say how accurate their software is. But accuracy is not quite what the skilled microwave designer wants to know. Rather, they are interested in what the error is. To get this information, just like the civil engineer who builds a model of a bridge only to stress it to the point that it breaks, we demonstrate how to break EM software. In doing so, we find out that all EM software always gives the wrong answer, without exception. In order to realize success with high probability, we need to establish firm upper bounds on that error and learn how to keep those upper bounds low enough that we have a good chance of success. Probability cannot be left to chance.

Today microwave techniques have an enormous impact on a huge number of fields from health care to telecommunication. This plethora of applications is achieved with more and more integration of microwave functionalities into general purpose systems thus the design and measurement techniques have been pushed and pushed toward the holy grail of first run IC success. However, the characterization and the measurements are intrinsically affected by an uncertainty, which is a function not only of the system but also of the DUT. For this reason a new Real-Time uncertainty approach able to quantify and present not only the nominal value, but also the associated uncertainty is becoming more and more fundamental for the high level of accuracy required for modern microwave system. The talk will present the recent advance in the field and in particular the methodology and the results achieved with a new real-time uncertainty computation engine.

An essential step after any calibration measurement is verification of the calibration accuracy. For the verification of linear S-parameter calibrations, several procedures and best practices have been proposed and developed in the past. Such procedures typically rely on well-known linear calibration standards (short, open, load, etc.). In large-signal Nonlinear Vector Network Analyzer (NVNA) measurements, however, linear calibration standards are insufficient and the development of a stable and accurate nonlinear verification standard has been a hot research topic for several years now. One of the main scientific challenges is to make the performance of the nonlinear verification device insensitive to the surrounding measurement instrument itself (for example, test port mismatches and DC bias variations). This talk will review state-of-the-art nonlinear verification standards and present the design of a new and promising nonlinear verification device. It will be shown how non-ideal instrument characteristics such as test port mismatches and DC bias variations influence the device performance. Load-pull measurement results and an improved Figure-Of-Merit (FOM) are furthermore presented and used to qualitatively compare device performance against state-of-the-art.

The presence of electrical noise is a common source of uncertainty, especially in the case of high bandwidth and low signal amplitude level. The development of high performance nanoelectronic integrated circuits and systems with increased functionality, high bandwidth and low signal power levels requires EMI-aware design. Such a design has to be based on accurate signal- and noise modeling to minimize the uncertainty in the operation of the circuits and systems. In this contribution we present advances in measurement and modeling of noisy electromagnetic fields using two-probe scanning and correlation analysis. Stochastic electromagnetic fields with Gaussian amplitude probability distribution can be fully described by auto- and cross correlation spectra of the field components. In case of digital circuitry clocked by a single clock pulse, the generated EMI is a cyclostationary process where the expectation values of the EMI are periodically time dependent according to the clock frequency and which have to be considered in modeling the EMI. Correlation analysis provides a basis for accurate modeling of noisy electromagnetic fields and, for strategies in computer aided design to reduce EMI. The determination of the near-field correlation spectra of the EMI radiated from devices and circuits by two-point measurements as well as methods to compute from these data the EMI distribution in complex environments are described. The amount of data required for the characterization of stochastic EM near fields can be reduced considerably by principal component analysis. The influence of noise on signal uncertainty is discussed.

This presentation will address the question of researchers, software developer or user of commercial software packages in microwave engineering: how can I modify the codes I am developing, or how can I utilize the software packages I am using in order to model uncertainties such as fabrication tolerances, tolerances of my input model, or statistical variations in the geometries I simulate? Naturally, it will start with a rigorous, yet intuitive introduction to fundamental aspects of the mathematical theory of uncertainty quantification in computational physics, from an engineering perspective. Then, the two families of uncertainty quantification techniques, namely non-intrusive and intrusive will be discussed. Along with Monte-Carlo, non-intrusive methods based on polynomial chaos and stochastic collocation driven surrogate models will be introduced. Intrusive techniques stemming from polynomial chaos will then be presented. The theoretical introduction of these techniques will be followed by examples, elucidating their application to microwave circuit analysis and design.

It is often the case that our electromagnetic simulations and measurement don't agree as well as we would hope. The origins for many of differences can be often traced to approximations or assumptions made during the simulation or measurement process (or both!). Such sources of uncertainty may include: approximations in numerical methods, imperfections in solid models, improper definition of electromagnetic port configurations, flawed material parameters, dynamic or inconsistent measurement environments, and potential drift or missteps in calibration. A detailed understanding of the electromagnetic fields, rather than just the port parameters, can aid in our understanding the origins of the differences. Measurement through electro-optic sampling of the dynamic electromagnetic fields above the circuit and their comparison with simulated fields often yields additional insight. Additionally, with Vector Network Analyzers now supporting uncertainty in addition to S-parameters measurement, we can now also begin to examine the contribution that uncertainty has in addressing the measurement-to-simulation gap…with sometimes surprising results.

Today’s RF & Microwave Modules continue to grow in both functionality and complexity. As such, uncertainties compound with the integration of multiple semiconductor, laminate, and component technologies. The importance and impact of accurate modeling for all building blocks must be considered, underscoring the importance of doing so with an integrated design and analysis platform. Once accurate models are secured and included for devices, packages, interconnects, laminates, components, and even evaluation boards…is that enough? Together we’ll investigate some key sources of uncertainty for Module design and explore how to mitigate risk with a comprehensive design, analysis, and verification flow.

Energy-efficient radio links are key to viable and widespread deployment of IoTs. Breakthroughs at the level of both circuits and systems, and energy harvesting and storage systems are much needed. In this talk, we will present a smorgasbord of the above mentioned problems and their potential solutions.

The Internet of Things (IoT) places new demands on wireless networks that are difficult to meet with conventional infrastructure, services, and protocols. A massive increase in the number of interconnected devices concurrent to IoT would strain the existing infrastructure, making some form of decentralized device-to-device or peer-to-peer (P2P) communication desirable. In order to manage the power consumption of P2P wireless links, duty-cycled radios have often been proposed due to their ability to shut off the static power consumption at low data rates. While earlier radio nodes for such systems have been proposed based on sleep-wake scheduling, such implementations are still power hungry due to large synchronization uncertainty (~1µs), and do not offer a scalable solution for large networks. A unique pulse-coupled oscillator based synchronization mechanism can be used to facilitate the network synchronization leading to both low power as well as scalable network realization. Pulse-coupled oscillator synchrony is modeled on a natural phenomenon observed in Southeast Asian fireflies, which are thought to use each other’s flashes to drive the network to flash in unison. This underlying theory can be used to synchronize radio networks, i.e. control the sleep-wake time of the radios, resulting into ultra-low power design. The talk will delve into the following: 1.) Duty-cycled Radios, and their effectiveness in low power applications. 2.) Timing and synchronization requirements for duty-cycled radios. 3.) Implementation of a scalable synchronization scheme based on naturally occurring phenomenon (fireflies blinking together). 4.) Design implementation of a UWB impulse based Radio, and consideration of pulse-shaping, FCC compliance, and spectrum usage. 5.) Interesting applications utilizing time sync methods. 6.) Implementation and Deployment challenges, and potential solution space. 7.) Requirements for future large scale and/or cellular compatible IoT systems

Meeting the demand for unprecedented connectivity in the era of internet-of-things (IoT) requires extremely energy efficient operation of IoT nodes to extend battery life. Managing the data traffic generated by trillions of such nodes also puts severe energy constraints on the data centers. Clock generators that are essential elements in these systems consume significant power and therefore must be optimized for low power and high performance. On one hand, sensor nodes require kHz clock generators operating within nW-scale power budget, while wireless and wireline transceivers need mW-scale GHz frequency synthesizers. In this talk, we will review the main design challenges of low power clock generators for both integer-N and fractional-N operation. We will then discuss recent design techniques such as injection locked clock multiplication to achieve both low jitter and low power consumption simultaneously.

Ultra-low-power sensing devices developed for next-generation IoT applications often communicate via deeply duty-cycled radios to achieve average system-level power consumption in the ~nanowatt regime. Absent the design of nanowatt wake-up radios, such sensing systems must keep synchronized via always-on oscillators that, unless carefully designed, can dominate the power in deeply duty-cycled systems. This presentation explores the design of on-chip integrated RC oscillators operating from Hz to kHz frequencies that, through architectural- and circuit-level innovations, achieve power consumption in the picowatt to nanowatt range. Various solutions to stabilize oscillation frequency from temperature and supply variations will also be covered.

The rapid proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT) presents two seemingly disparate challenges of ultra-low energy overhead and high data rates to radio designers. But in reality, these two constraints are closely connected. Indeed, with the increase in the number of nodes in the mesh, the network becomes more and more congested. The only solution to decongest it, is to enable the radio to communicate at a higher data rate so that the system can be effectively duty-cycled. Now, in such a heavily duty-cycled system with high peak data rates, the average energy spent for communication becomes comparable with the energy overhead of the radio. In traditional radios employing synthesizers based on analog or digital PLLs, the energy overhead is dominated in by the energy required to wake-up the radio. The wake-up time is actually mostly determined by the very high Q of the crystal oscillator (XO), which at the same time also sets the phase noise performance. The wake-up time can be shortened without deteriorating the phase noise by building a loop-free frequency synthesizer based on an RF oscillator using a high-Q resonator such as a FBAR. But due to the frequency stability of the FBAR (after compensating for its frequency variations with temperature), tuning the synthesizer over a wide frequency range is extremely difficult. This talk will show different solutions to this problem and techniques for building low latency loop-free synthesizer.

Millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) technology is widely considered as one of the key technologies that will continue to serve the consumer demand for the increased wireless data capacity. The advanced CMOS can now well operate in mm-Wave bands, permitting the integration of a full transceiver in a low-cost, high-yield technology. However, due to the high operating frequency and large transistor size, the power amplifier (PA) becomes the most challenging building block in a mm-Wave transceiver. On top of that, efficiency enhancement techniques are still a hot topic in the design of RF PAs. In this talk, various PA efficiency enhancement techniques will be briefly reviewed and their implementations at RF frequencies will be compared. At the end, some state-of-the-art mm-Wave efficiency enhanced PA designs will be presented.

For next-generation 5G MMW applications, the 10-Gbps high-speed transmitters have stringing linearity and power saving requirements, which cannot be satisfied with the traditional digital pre-distortion (DPD) techniques. In addition, it is also required to work over a wide bandwidth, like from 57 GHz to 66 GHz. Furthermore, the design complexity needs to be taken into consideration. The RF pre-distortion linearization techniques aim to achieve adequate linear output power as PA operating under lower power consumption. Hence, this talk will cover the RF pre-distortion and post-distortion at 28GHz/ 38GHz/45GHz/60GHz bands for the future 5G MMW applications.

Doherty is a well known technique to extend the high efficiency region on PAs. In recent year, this technique has been implemented in Si and CMOS technologies, where the transmissionlines are replaced by a compact transformer-based power combiner. This allows the combination of Class AB and Class C biased amplifiers, exploits distortion cancellation and increases the output power. Furthermore, transformer-based combining and matching leads to higher efficiency than lumped-element based matching when using low-Q inductors. The result is an outstanding PA topology that gives an excellent trade-off between gain, efficiency, linearity and output power. This talk will give an overview of the different challenges when integrating a Doherty in CMOS at mm-wave frequencies and will discuss some examples in 40nm and 28nm CMOS.

Switching power amplifiers enable more efficient and higher power generation as compared with their linear counterparts, while they enable digital polar transmitter architectures. This talk covers various millimeter-wave switching power amplifier architectures where proper combination of single/stacked-transistor and harmonic-shaping passive components are judiciously used to ensure high voltage swing across the transistors (for high power generation) and small overlap between the voltage and current waveforms on each transistor (for high efficiency). Several proof-of-concept prototype switching power amplifiers at around 30 GHz, 45 GHz, and 90 GHz frequency bands realized in SiGe HBT processes will be covered

GaAs MESFETs (Metal Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors) and their later modifications HFETs (Heterostructure Field Effect Transistors) using artificially structured III-V semiconductors have been exhibiting the lowest noise temperatures of any microwave transistors since their first introduction in 1960’s. The current best noise performance is achieved by InP HFETs with gate as short as 35 nm. The rapid advances in technologies of HBTs (Microwave Heterostucture Bipolar Transistors) and CMOS pose a question whether these transistors can in the future offer alternatives to the extremely low noise performance of InP HFET’s (including their pseudomorphic and methamorphic versions). In order to compare these very different technologies noise models of unipolar and bipolar transistors are reviewed with emphasis on their common noise properties. Certain limits on the allowable values of transistor noise parameters are established proving that in practice any microwave transistor may be characterized only by three noise parameters, instead of four required for linear two ports in general. Experimental confirmations for III-V FETs, HEMTs, HBTs (in several different technologies including GaN HEMTs), and CMOS devices are shown. The question what determines the minimum noise temperature of either FET or BT and the current state of the art are briefly reviewed both at the room at the cryogenic temperatures. The possible limits of low noise performance upon further scaling of gate or emitter size are discussed. Widely held and widely published concepts in the treatment of noise in transistors and amplifiers, amongst those “gate induced noise” in FETs, wideband amplifier design, CMOS “noise cancelling” amplifiers are critically examined. The discussion is illustrated with experimental data

The measurement of the noise figure is at the core of the noise characterization of a linear microwave device and it is key to determine its noise parameters. Modern microwave test equipment have greatly enhanced and simplified the measurement of the noise figure in the past years - less so when considering the determination of the noise parameters. In either case, the measurement system is fundamentally tailored to measure 2 port devices and its adaptation to the characterization of modern differential amplifiers is not as straightforward as in the single ended case. Indeed, there are some clear limitations to the standard techniques in use when multiport networks are tested for noise figure or when transistors’ noise parameters are sought at high frequencies above the capabilities provided by commercially available tuners. This talk will start from a review of standard noise characterization procedures and expand to discuss 2 very recent accomplishments published by the author - the first on the determination of the noise parameters to linear N-port networks; the second on the noise parameters determination of on-wafer transistors without the use of tuners.

Noise in mixers continues to be a confusing subject, not only because there are at least three noise figure definitions for mixers, but also because the relationships between noise figure and noise temperature for two-ports are not valid for mixers. Since two-port noise concepts are not generally valid for mixers, the intuitive concepts we use to optimize noise in two-ports also are often invalid. In this presentation we will discuss the paradoxes of mixer noise characterization, show how well established noise characterization methods can be applied to mixers, and methods for optimizing mixer noise figure in both passive and active mixer circuits. We will also show some examples of modern, low-noise mixer circuits and provide some insight as to how they were optimized.

This talk addresses the question how nonlinear excitations impact the properties of flicker and white noise sources. In addition to frequency conversion due to mixing effects in nonlinear circuits, it has been shown that noise sources in semiconductors often depend on the large-signal current. Therefore, their noise spectra differ significantly from the linear case. This talk will briefly introduce the physical background of this effect, discuss approaches to simulate nonlinear noise in time and frequency domain, present a nonlinear noise model of a InGaP/GaAs HBT and conclude with examples of mixer and oscillator simulation and measurement.

Silicon photonics is a promising technology for realization of future data communications and interconnect systems. It brings the advantages of optical communication in a highly integrated platform with low manufacturing cost. In this talk we will cover Silicon-Photonic-based high-speed interconnects and their key building blocks. At the transmitter side design of compact modulators with low link-penalty as well as efficient CMOS drivers will be discussed. At the receiver side design approaches for high-sensitivity front-ends optimized for Si-P detectors will be presented. System-level topics such as WDM, 3D integration and packaging will be also covered. In particular effective co-design of electronics and photonics as a holistic approach for reducing the total power consumption and enhancing the performance of the link will be discussed.

Microwave photonics has been an active, but relatively small, research area over the past thirty years with applications to remote antennas. Conventional microwave photonic systems include optical modulators, lasers, photodiodes, and electronic drivers and result in performance trade-offs between bandwidth, linearity, noise figure, and power consumption. Additionally, size and area have been a significant consideration in the use microwave photonic components. The use of silicon photonic processes could offer lower cost and area and offer the ability to implement photonic integrated circuits but sacrifices some of the performance of spur-free dynamic range for a microwave photonic link. Consequently, this talk will address some techniques to augment microwave photonic links through the co-integration of electronics and photonics.

In this talk examples of electronic assisted photonics, where analog, RF, and mm-wave circuits and techniques are employed to improve the performance of photonic systems will be discussed. An optical synthesizer is presented which is capable of Hz-level tuning of a semiconductor laser emitting at 200THz over a 5THz range. Also, integrated electronic laser stabilization and phase noise reduction will be presented.

In this talk, we will investigate new devices emerging from a hybrid approach to the design of electronics and photonics integrated circuits. We will review several hybrid design design examples, such as optical phased arrays, hybrid equalizers, and optical mm-wave signal generation. Showing how the synergy among these technologies can results in more than some their parts.

Radio frequency phased arrays, primarily developed during the WWII for radar applications in discrete modular realizations, have entered consumer commercial applications such as automotive radars and high-speed wireless communications in monolithic realizations. Optical phased arrays enable several important applications such as lidar, imaging, display, and holography. This talk covers monolithic optical phased arrays realized in commercial SOI RF CMOS technology. The optical phased array architectures leverage lessons learned in the RF phased arrays and benefit tight integration of photonic and electronic functions.

This talk will describe what is expected from millimeter wave front-ends in the development of the future 5G networks. An overview of the most attractive frequency bands will be given, describing the related pros and cons. The current limitations and the foreseen evolution of electronics will be discussed.

We present several design techniques to achieve high efficiency and linear power amplifiers in the millimeter-wave frequencies. We will first review the performance of power amplifiers in different semiconductor process technologies at millimeter-wave frequencies. We will discuss the design, implementation and performance of stacked-FET power amplifiers, Doherty power amplifiers and linearization techniques to achieve high efficiency and linearity in millimeter-wave frequencies. The presented power amplifiers have applications in the 5G wireless communications.

The mm-wave frequency range is a key enabler for 5G wireless networks. Both for the backhaul network and access network with consumer products such as smartphones, tablets, cars, and IOTs. The 5G infrastructure is reaching out for higher frequencies having more available bandwidth. Simultaneously; price, handling and performance are important driving factors to meet the market requirements. The challenges for miniaturizing the MMICs and high frequency package solution reaching D-band are addressed and solutions to meet those demands are presented. Furthermore we will address the market and future outlook for the 5G mm-wave frequency bands.

This presentation deals with the challenges and possible solution for the integration, in SOI technology, of the power amplifier with the rest of the front-end.

The removal of circulators and isolators from high frequency front-ends has been discussed since ancient times, due to the high cost, size and weight of these bulk components that cannot be integrated. Unfortunately, the drawbacks from the removal of these crucial components are often too important, and the circulators and isolators stand still in the front-ends. This talk will show how, instead of removing them, circulators and isolators can be integrated and become convenient thanks to novel design techniques and advanced integration technology.

Outphasing architectures generate load modulation through phase control of multiple nonlinear PAs, offering the potential for linear amplification with high efficiency over a wide range of output powers. The advantage of this approach is in the efficiency of the branch PAs, which can be highly saturated. Historically, however, outphasing has several drawbacks that have limited its success. After an overview of historical outphasing techniques, this talk will present recent advances in outphasing PAs, including ones that reduce complexity and improve back-off efficiency in practical implementations. Limitations and challenges of designing outphasing PAs will also be discussed.

Pulsed load modulated (PLM) PAs can achieve high power efficiency through its duty-cycle dependent load behavior. Under certain Bitstream modulations, the amplifier output can be considered as a discretized and amplified version of the original RF signal. Filtering is thus required to eliminate the quantization noise and to restore the original RF signal. In this talk, we will introduce the different modulation techniques that may be applied to PLM PAs and filtering techniques including both passive and active filtering that work with the PAs to suppress the quantization noise without sacrificing the overall system efficiency.

A novel power amplifier architecture, the “Load Modulated Balanced Power Amplifier” (“LMBA”), is presented. The LMBA is able to modulate the impedance seen by a pair of RF power transistors in a quadrature balanced configuration, by varying the amplitude and phase of an external control signal. This enables power and efficiency to be optimized dynamically at specific power backoff levels and frequencies. Unlike the Doherty PA, the load seen by the active devices can be modulated upwards or downwards, both resistively and reactively, without any loss of power combination efficacy. The LMBA is presented as a potentially disruptive technique which enables any specific amplifier characteristic to be controlled dynamically over wide signal amplitude and frequency ranges. Implemented hardware examples will be shown, demonstrating LMBA action over octave bandwidths in S-band and X-band.

This paper shows the preliminary results of combining load modulation and envelope tracking, to get a large RF bandwidth with good efficiency in backoff. This Load Modulated Envelope Tracking (OLMET) combination method, is a Doherty like topology, without the bandwidth limiting quarter wave long lines. The technique is , in itself , independent of RF bandwidth. The only RF bandwidth limiting parts in this technique are the RF bandwidth of the amplifiers itself and a power splitter. Preliminary simulation results for a GaN MMIC process, show drain efficiency above 40% at 12dB backoff and a bandwidth of 1.2Ghz centred around 2.2Ghz.

A plethora of power amplifier architectures have been proposed to address the need for increased back-off efficency and linearity in wireless communication applications. Among them, varactor based dynamic load modulation (DLM) is one of the least investigated. This talk will first introduce the DLM concept. A variety of theoretical and experimental results will then be given to demonstrate the potential of DLM for both wideband, multi-band, and high power applications. We will also show how DLM in combination with dedicated digital pre-distortion linearization techniques results in a very competitive power amplifier architecture for both present and emerging wireless systems.

Most existing analyses of the Chrieix outphasing circuit assume that the active devices behave as voltage sources. Once this rusty creaking door is forced open, the analysis poses few problems and shows how the combined output power can be controlled over a useful range and with enhanced efficiency by varying the differential phase of the two input signals. But in almost all other applications and PA analyses transistors are not usually considered to behave as voltage sources, and as such it is surprising that after 80 years the outphasing configuration still sits on such shaky foundations. This paper analyses the Chireix outphasing circuit using a novel analytical model for the transistor I-V knee characteristics, rather than the approximation of a simple voltage source. It also incorporates input drive level variation, usually a critical independent variable in any other PA analysis, but curiously underrated by the RFPA outphasing community. The result is a more comprehensive understanding of how the outphasing circuit works, and various new design pointers.

This talk presents measurements of internal load modulation occurring in outphasing amplifiers with and without supply modulation. X-band GaN MMIC power amplifiers with 70% power-added efficiency and 2.7 W output power at 10.1 GHz are configured in hybrid outphasing circuits with several combiners that include bi-directional couplers, enabling calibrated measurements of internal load modulation. It is experimentally demonstrated that the load modulation critically depends on the power balance of the two internal MMIC PAs. Despite the additional loss in the combiner, peak total efficiencies greater than 47% are achieved by full outphasing PAs with more than 3.7 W of output power. A comparison between several outphasing configurations quantifies the improvement in efficiency for both isolated and non-isolated outphasing PAs with supply modulation.

With more integrated transmit and receive systems becoming increasingly prevalent, characterization tasks have received added attention. While calibration can be an issue, particularly with any over-the-air aspect of those measurements, linearity analysis can also be more involved. On the transmit side, added spectral content from clocking imperfections (usually appearing as spurs) or unintended coupling (both in an analog sense and in a digital-spectrum-intruding-on-analog-space meaning) can affect a spectrum-based linearity measurement and may require deconvolution. On the receive side, clocking imperfections can have a different effect on linearity measurements including noise floor elevations and low-order bit errors. This talk will look at some of the calibrations and interpretation nuances that can affect this class of measurements.

With digitally modulated radio signals increasing in carrier frequency and instantaneous bandwidth, the dynamic range demands of the signal chain in digital radios and test and measurement equipment is increasing. In order to transmit and receive signals with both small and large power levels, signal chains must utilize variable gain in order to maintain adequate dynamic range, usually measured by error vector magnitude (EVM). This workshop presentation will focus on tackling the tough problem of optimizing signal chains for digitally modulated signals with an emphasis on variable gain signal chains. In particular, the relationship between EVM and typical RF impairments such as noise figure, intermodulation distortion, phase noise, and linear amplitude/phase distortion will be discussed. Additionally, a methodology for optimizing variable gain signal chains will be shown. Finally, various graphical visualization methods will be developed to help signal chain engineers locate dynamic range limiting areas within the signal chain.

5G SDR approaches have an impact on nowadays microwave characterization technologies, the change in paradigm from analog to digital has a strong impact in the way nonlinear microwave characterization is seen. Behavioural characterization and modelling becomes a fundamental tool in complex systems, where the combination of analog and digital. In this talk a general overview of these technologies is presented, focusing on Software Defined Radio front-end characterization. Its characterization approaches will be presented as an integrated view on how to model and how to characterize those components from a behavioural point of view. Some examples on Analog to Digital Converters (ADC’s) and Digital to Analog Converters (DCA’s) as Digital Pre-distortion (DPD) feedback paths will be presented.

The use of digital predistortion (DPD) techniques for the linearization base station transmitter (BTS) power amplifiers is now commonplace in cellular wireless infrastructure. Digital predistortion is a classic example an adaptive control system, in which we are controlling the output of the plant – the power amplifier – using algorithms implemented in the digital domain, often using an FPGA or custom digital IC. It is a mixed-domain control system: the signal we wish to control is in an RF signal, and the controller is in digital hardware. Conversion of the RF signal to a digital signal, and back again, must be achieved without introducing further distortions and limitations. This places strict requirements on the data converters, frequency translation components, filters, and amplifiers that comprise the hardware aspect of the DPD system. Such considerations include the analog nonlinearity, IQ imbalance, and frequency response, and digital impairments such as jitter, thermal noise, and dynamic range.

High power amplifiers (PA), LNA and MIXERS have an important impact on RF front-ends behavior. Then, for designing a transceiver system, accurate behavioral models are necessary to take into account signal nonlinear distortion, bilaterality and memory effects. This paper presents an experimental measurement methodology and setup that allow a reliable identification of the Two-Path Memory Nonlinear Integral Model which is the basis of the description of each block of RF Front-ends. We discuss here the formulation of each models and the precision which can be obtained with a global macro-model (autonomous) which can be loaded in classical CAO tools (AWR, Ptolemy, Simulink ...). The study case presented here is a down-converter 3 GHz to 1.28 GHz the analysis bandwidth is 200 MHz.

There has been a recent renaissance of interest and investment in deploying high-data-rate communications networks based on constellations of 1000’s of Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) satellites, as well as suborbital communications platforms such as High-Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) aircraft, persistent UAVs, airships, etc. These networks will have global impact on humanity by delivering ubiquitous high-bandwidth communications to nearly 60% of the world’s population that lives in underserved and fast-growing, but hard-to wire, regions of the world, maintaining such communications during natural or manmade disasters, with modest investments in ground infrastructure, and serving as a critical backbone for the Internet of Things (IoT). In the more distant future, these space-based networks may extend to serve manned and unmanned space missions throughout the solar system. We refer to these emerging networks as the Internet of Space (IoS). For example, Google and SpaceX recently announced a $B investment in a plan to deliver hundreds or thousands of micro satellites into LEO around the globe to serve Internet to rural and developing areas of the world. SpaceX’s ultimate goal is building a bridge to a future manned colony on Mars. Similarly, a new venture, OneWeb, is proposing a 648 satellite LEO constellation, with significant investments from Virgin Group and Qualcomm. Facebook and Google already have begun laying plans to serve under-wired markets with drone-based and balloon-based data networks. The European Space Agency and AirBus Defense & Space are planning a “Space Data Highway” that features EO satellites at GEO, and a set of LEO satellites to provide a hybrid optical / RF network for Emergency Response, Open Ocean Surveillance, UAS communication, Weather Forecasting and Wide-Area Monitoring on the impacts of human activities on state of natural resources (deforestation, loss of biodiversity, water/air pollution). Facebook is leading “Internet.org” to bring together technology leaders, nonprofits and local communities to connect the two thirds of the world that doesn’t have internet access. The Space-based networks represent the final frontier in the competition for connectivity. Back in the 1990’s, there were a number of large space-based satellite network ventures, such as Iridium, GlobalStar, Teledesic, etc. but only limited number of low-data rate (kbps) satellites were ultimately deployed. However, since that time, satellite technology has greatly advanced, bringing the cost of deployment down significantly. “Toaster-sized” micro-satellites can be launched dozens at a time to low earth orbits (LEO), reducing launch costs, while delivering performance comparable to larger, older satellites at higher orbits. Also, operation at LEO, satellites will also significantly reduce network latencies, while introducing challenging tracking, synchronization and handoff issues. Advances in microwave/mm-wave phased array technology and advanced CMOS over the last several years will also be key enablers. The new networks should not be expected to replace terrestrial networks, but will integrate seamlessly with these networks to provide ubiquitous global connectivity. Together with several other IEEE Societies the MTT-Society has launched an IEEE Internet of Space Future Directions Initiative in order to promote the future of satellite communication and sensing worldwide.

The presentation will review concepts for future satellite communication systems including LEO, MEO and GEO. Based on these future system architectures, the potential requirements for next generation microwave technologies will be derived.

Given the experience of space microwave equipment and commercial RF transceivers, combined with upcoming technology evolutions, transponder concepts are discussed and evaluated. The approach of total integration along signal path from input to power amplifier output enhances signal integrity and robustness in manufacturing. Due to full flexibility versus frequency conversion, a high reusability of this concept is supporting market expectation of individual frequency setting as well. Application of LTCC as core technology for 3 D integration of RF functions opens up the capability to merge amplifier, multiplier, mixer and bias circuit in a single module. The operating RF bandwidth selection at the in- and output is supported by tunable filters. Several concepts with tuning in orbit or on ground will be presented, based on different upcoming technologies. Tuning filters with Liquid Crystal to avoid moving parts or solutions featuring innovative coupling resonators to adjust filter bandwidth or manifold coupling and their contribution for small satellites are discussed and valued. Finally the presentation is summarizing different technology and design approaches for RF payloads, explaining their potential for space application and how they are fitting in low-cost transceivers for small satellite transponders.

Satellite technologies play an increasingly important role in a connected world, especially for advanced mobility applications. High data rate, abundant coverage, and ubiquitous positioning information are of major concern for many relevant use cases. Significant progress has been achieved in technologies both for the space segment and the ground segment, as well as for advanced testing methodologies that account for the intimate fusion of air interfaces and propagation channel. This contribution aims at providing a comprehensive and clear description of the potential of satellite payload and user terminal technologies for advanced mobility applications, accoun¬ting for the latest developments under the responsibility of the authors. The achievements include versatile electronically reconfigurable, space-qualified and tested, payload modules for the space segment in satellite communications. High-gain and low-profile tracking antennas and tracking mechanisms for heterogeneous satcom-on-the-move links represent major activities in the ground segment. The presentation further highlights the innovative testing technologies available in Ilmenau, covering a free-space testbed as well as virtual electromagnetic environments, for powerful over-the-air testing of mobile communication links. In a third part, approaches towards interference-resistant satellite navigation with compact antenna arrays for safety-critical applications will be described. This satellite-based technology has recently gained utmost relevance for automated driving.

The recent growth of low cost small satellite technology has fueled interest in in high data rate communications networks based on constellations of small satellites in Low Earth Orbit and opened new possibilities for interplanetary communications networks. Small satellites and CubeSats present a unique antenna design challenge due to the inherent stowage limitations, mass and environmental requirements. This workshop will present an overview of recent antenna technology developed to support the unique requirements of small satellites. Deployable high gain antennas and low gain proximity antenna technology will be highlighted. The workshop will also discuss future trends in antenna development for small satellite communications antennas.

The talk will present our latest work on SATCOM phased arrays using silicon technologies. It is seen that well designed chips can greatly lower the cost of SATCOM phased arrays, and can switch the beam very quickly (in microseconds). The use of these chips in actual implementations will be shown at Ku and Ka-band.

The internet of space technology has a lot to gain from programmable RF platforms. Technologies that result in fully reconfigurable transfer functions based on low-power mobile form-factor platforms are particularly attractive for satellite radios. It is for this reason that acoustic-wave resonators (BAW and SAW) need to be seriously considered for this field. However, conventional BAW and SAW architectures present few opportunities for achieving tunable responses. It is the purpose of this talk to discuss novel hybrid acoustic-wave lumped-element-resonator-based (AWLR) architectures that enable highly-reconfigurable operation. Such AWLR architectures bring the best of both worlds: a) the high quality factor of SAW/BAW resonators, and b) the wide tunability of lumped elements. Both bandpass and bandstop architectures for interference mitigation applications will be reviewed. Future opportunities for on-chip intrinsically-switchable filters will also be reviewed.

Emerging and future wireless solutions strongly rely on circuit agility to enhance equipment performance by improving form/weight factor and miniaturization. The introduction of reconfigurable and/or tunable circuits and antennas are considered as game changers in next generation of wireless communications (e.g. 5G) and detection (e.g. radar) systems, and more generically speaking for the internet of space. Endowed with high tunability and high quality factor, frequency agile components based in ferroelectric and MEMS technologies have been studied and optimized for a variety of applications going from filtering to phase shifting and from few GHz up to the mm-wave band. A perspective on recent achievements in this area will be presented.

Since the internet of space initiative requires a large number of satellites which need to be launched, a new technology is indispensable. On one hand, this technology needs to be tunable to provide a high flexibility in application but on the other hand it has to avoid mechanically moving components to reduce the risk of wear-out failures to a minimum. Furthermore, it should be low cost and adaptable to the higher frequency range, which might be an alternative for future satellite communication, due to the large available bandwidths. These challenges can be met by using electrically tunable systems such as 2D-steerable phased array antennas based on liquid crystals (LCs). Due to their unique property of exhibiting local anisotropy and their low dielectric loss in the higher microwave and millimeter wave range, it is a very promising material for the low-cost realization of continuously tunable RF devices for satellite communication. The technology has been improved in our research group over the past thirteen years, amongst others in projects funded by the German aerospace agency, for many different devices such as LC-filled hollow waveguide phase shifters for horn antenna arrays, microstrip line phase shifters integrated in planar phased array antennas or LTCC integrated antenna arrays. This work will therefore present the latest improvements of the LC technology for satellite applications.

In this presentation, a review of different approaches for the implementation of microwave components exhibiting multiband functionality, tuning and/or multifunctionality is addressed. All these approaches share the use of artificial transmission lines inspired by metamaterials. Examples of applications including passive components (filters, diplexers, splitters, couplers) and active devices (e.g. distributed amplifiers and mixers) are reported.

Impedance spectroscopy can yield important information regarding the electromagnetic response of biomolecules, cells, and other important fluidic systems. However, few impedance spectroscopy measurements are applied above the water relaxation frequency (approx. 18 GHz at 25C). We describe the design, verification and application of swept-frequency impedance spectroscopy experiments using microfluidic structures and wafer-probe measurements at frequencies above 20 GHz. Current broadband swept-frequency measurements are demonstrated over the frequency range 100 kHz - 110 GHz, while higher frequencies can be obtained only via band-limited approaches. Such measurements open up mm-wave frequencies for impedance spectroscopy investigations of biofluids.

The implementation of integrated mm-wave radiation sources and detectors offer a path toward a compact and low cost sensor for gas spectroscopy to meet the objective of a high-sensitivity, high-specificity breath sensor. The presentation reviews our recent work on transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) circuits in SiGe BiCMOS technology for gas spectroscopy in the frequency ranges around 245 GHz and 500 GHz. The local oscillators of the TX and the RX are controlled by two external PLLs. The performance of our sensor system is demonstrated by using a gas absorption cell with dielectric lenses between the TX- and RX-modules, and measuring the high-resolution absorption spectrum of gaseous methanol (CH3OH) and acetonitrile (CH3CN).

Recent practical advancements in THz source, detector, and system technology have enabled researchers to explore a myriad of medical applications in both research laboratory and clinical settings. While much progress has been made in clinically relevant investigations, clinical translation has been limited. In vivo, physiologic tissue does not display specific THz frequency spectral signatures and features identified in the excised tissue are often difficult to observe in vivo due to the large aqueous background present in all tissues. Model based analysis has also been limited as THz frequency electromagnetic models are highly sensitive to tissue morphology. In practice, physiologic variation is so broad that it is nearly impossible to apply most models a priori. These issues are all compounded by biophotonic systems (optical imaging designs based on UV/VIS/IR spectra) that often offer similar or superior performance for a fraction of the cost and complexity. In light of these issues our group has chosen to focus on three applications which we believe are ideal for THz diagnostic imaging technology. The first two are acute burn wound severity assessment and surgical flap viability assessment. In both cases, the immediate physiologic response is characterized by massive changes in tissue water content (edema) allowing a THz based system to generate significant contrast without the need for substantial model based analysis or knowledge of tissue morphology. Further, excess tissue water content confounds the measurement of blood perfusion which is the key contrast mechanism of the majority of biophotonic systems thus suggesting a key advantage of THz frequency imaging. The third application is the early detection of corneal diseases that are correlated with changes in corneal tissue water content. Current practice limits diagnostics to the measurement of corneal thickness and extrapolation to water content which itself is incredibly inaccurate and does not account for physiologic variation. While disease related changes in tissue water content are small, the physiologic variation in corneal thickness, as referenced to THz wavelengths is nearly negligible. Thus the cornea can be treated as a thin film and model based analysis can be applied with reliable a priori assumptions on tissue morphology.

Global observations of clouds and precipitation are essential to improve prediction of severe weather having substantial impacts on human life and property. To this end, satellites in geostationary orbit (GEO) have greatly improved weather prediction by providing visible and infrared measurements on the 5- to 10-minute time scale. However, to peer inside of and help understand clouds, ice processes and the onset of precipitation requires millimeter-wave to THz sensors. At the same time, the satellite industry has recently experienced the maturation of disruptive technology and manufacturing processes to build and launch U-Class satellites. Commonly called CubeSats, these small satellites feature rapid development cycles (about two years) and low-cost launches (less than $0.5 M) as secondary payloads on missions of opportunity. Specifically, 6U-Class satellites provide healthy margins on mass, power, communications and antenna apertures to accommodate millimeter-wave to THz (90-900 GHz) sensors capable of observing clouds and precipitation on a global basis. A closely-spaced constellation of such remote sensors of precipitation can observe the time evolution of ice cloud processes leading to precipitation with revisit times on the order of 5 minutes. Currently, a 6U-Class satellite is being produced to perform technology demonstration for a constellation mission known as the Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems (TEMPEST). A partnership among Colorado State University (lead institution), NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Blue Canyon Technologies, TEMPEST-D is planned to be delivered by July 2017 for a NASA-provided launch by April 2018.

We describe the integration of microfluidics with high quality factor electrical resonators for the creation of lab-on-a-chip devices for the analysis of small quantities of biological, toxic, explosive, and other liquid types at terahertz and microwave frequencies. These devices are capable of measuring the complex permittivity of sub-microliter liquid samples, and we demonstrate this sensitivity by detecting individual biological cells in a free-flowing buffer solution. The dielectric measurement of single biological cells in the terahertz and microwave bands represents a possible route for the label-free detection of circulating tumour cells in blood samples, and we present results towards realizing this goal.

In spite of the considerable progress in terahertz technology, practical feasibility of many exciting applications of terahertz systems is still bound by the low power, poor efficiency, and bulky nature of existing terahertz sources. Photoconduction is one of the most promising and commonly used means of terahertz generation, due to availability of high power, wavelength tunable, and compact optical sources with pulsed and continuous-wave operation required for broadband and narrowband terahertz generation, respectively. Here, we present an overview of recent advances in photoconductive terahertz emitters that utilize plasmonic nanostructures to significantly enhance optical-to-terahertz power conversion efficiency by enhancing light-matter interaction at nanoscale. Utilizing plasmonic nanostructures in a photoconductive emitter allows concentrating a larger fraction of the incident pump photons within nanoscale distances from the contact electrodes. By reducing the average transport path of photocarriers to the contact electrodes, the ultrafast photocurrent that drives the terahertz antenna is significantly enhanced and the optical-to-terahertz power conversion efficiency is increased considerably. This enhancement mechanism has been widely used in various photoconductive terahertz emitters with a variety of device architectures and in various operational settings, demonstrating significant optical-to-terahertz conversion efficiency enhancements. We demonstrate that use of two-dimensional and three-dimensional plasmonic nanostructures leads to 2 orders-of-magnitude and 3 orders-of-magnitude enhancement in the optical to terahertz conversion efficiency of conventional photoconductive emitters, respectively, offering a record-high optical to terahertz conversion efficiency of ~10%. We show that the significant performance enhancement offered by plasmonic nanostructures can be utilized to achieve record-high terahertz power levels in both continuous-wave and pulsed operation at optical pump wavelengths ranging from 800-1550 nm.

A global review of the actual state of the art of THz Sensor activities is given. This includes biomedical and environmental applications as well as industrial testing. In this presentation the focus is put on the electromagnetic/physical aspects not on the signal and image processing which is an important part in some applications as well.

Increasing optical and electrical functionality within a volume drive the continued sub-wavelength scaling of nano-scaled devices. Studies of light matter interaction (LMI) in the sub-wavelength regime have revealed unique absorption, scattering, and transmission characteristics. Unconventional devices based on such characteristics include sub-wavelength perfect absorbing films, devices with tailored scattering signatures, and devices with electromagnetically induced transmission, to name a few. To achieve smaller volumes and enhanced LMI, extreme light confinement is needed and is realized with plasmons, which are sub-wavelength surface electromagnetic waves at an interface with permittivities of differing sign. Recent research in sub-wavelength plasmon metasurfaces offer significant potential to control far-field light propagation through the engineering of amplitude, polarization, and phase at an interface. We discuss in this presentation demonstrated phase modulation from an electronically reconfigurable metasurface based on a van der Waals material, graphene. Based on experimental data, we discuss the feasibility of reconfigurable mid-infrared beam steering devices based on a 2-D material.

This talk will present an overview of the European project PlanarCal, which is funded from the European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research (EMPIR). The overall aim of the project is to enable the traceable measurement and electrical characterisation of integrated planar circuits and components from radio-frequency (RF) to sub-mm frequencies. This will allow industry to characterise components and devices for eventual use in high-speed and microwave applications (e.g. wireless communications, automotive radar and medical sensing) with known measurement uncertainties.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has put together a traceability path for large-signal on-wafer measurements that starts with on-wafer measurements and extends all the way through circuit design and simulation. We will discuss this entire traceability path. We will begin with the fundamental linear part of the calibration, which focuses on on-wafer impedance and scattering-parameter measurements. Then we will turn to the amplitude and phase aspects of the calibrations. We will discuss how these uncertainties can be propagated through the device modeling process, and how we can add process variations to the results. Finally, we will discuss the creation of models that capture not only the impact of measurement uncertainty and process variation in the model development process, but touch on how these can be seamlessly implemented in ADS and other circuit simulation tools.

Depending on the application there are a multitude of calibration algorithms (SOLT, TRL, LRL, LRM, …) which are applied to on-wafer measurements. Additionally there are many uncertainty contributions (contact repeatability, drift of the VNA, cross-talk, uncertainty of the standards, ...) which have to be considered for estimating measurement uncertainty. VNA Tools is a free software which can be used to calibrate on-wafer measurement data and which propagates the uncertainties to the final result. Starting from the experimental characterization of uncertainty sources up to the final result with error budget, all steps are shown in an exemplary on-wafer calibration.

On-wafer probing technology have widely been demanded at millimeter-wave and Terahertz frequencies. However in order to make precision and reproducible measurements, all other aspects of the measurement techniques must be considered. This talk will present the AIST’s probe contact algorism and over-determined wafer-level calibration technique in order to precision and reproducible wafer-level VNA measurements that can be achieved.

Wafer-level S-parameter measurement at mm-wave and sub-mm wave frequencies plays a crucial role in the model development and IC design verification and debug of advanced semiconductor technologies. Accurate calibration of the entire wafer-level measurement system to the RF probe tip end or to the intrinsic device terminals is a critical success factor for extracting trustable device model parameters and characterizing true performance of a MMIC. This presentation will start with the basics of S-parameter measurement and calibration techniques at the wafer-level. Special attention will be paid to how to choose the right calibration method for specific measurement application needs. Definition of the calibration reference plane and the measurement reference impedance of a calibrated system will be reviewed as well. Finally, the potential sources of calibration residual errors will be analyzed. Practical examples will be given on how to minimize the impact of such errors on the measurement accuracy of a calibrated probe system.

The ongoing miniaturization of electronic devices has led to the discovery of new nanomaterials and new phenomena at the nanoscale. In turn, this has led to the design, fabrication, and development of RF nanoelectronic devices that incorporate nanoscale elements or nanomaterials, such as carbon nanotubes, semiconducting nanowires, or graphene. Reliable, accurate, on-wafer measurements of such devices are critical to their optimization and commercialization. To this end, a full framework, including measurement, modeling, and validation, has been developed for on-wafer characterization of RF nanoelectronics. The calibration approach is based on the on-wafer, multiline thru-reflect-line technique. Further, this framework addresses the inherent impedance mismatch between RF nanoelectronic devices and commercial test equipment. Finally, circuit and finite-element models are used to extract circuit and material parameters for the devices.

Nanotechnology emerges from the physical, chemical, biological and engineering sciences, where novel tools and techniques are developed to probe and manipulate single atoms and molecules. In particular, the introduction of near-field scanning microwave microscopy tools have pioneered many applications, notably including mapping and quantitative measurement of complex impedances of nano-devices and electromagnetic properties of materials. In this frame, a unique scanning 1-110 GHz scanning microwave microscope built inside a scanning electron microscope is developed. The system can produces simultaneously complex impedance, atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy images providing novel and unique equipment featuring unprecedented capabilities for tackling the frontiers between spatial resolution and frequency domain.

In the last few years electronic devices increased their corner frequencies tremendously, on the one hand due to material optimizations and on the other hand due to the ongoing miniaturization in device size. Especially the miniaturization of device size resulting in an increase of the corner frequencies leads to parasitic effects like fringing or coupling that have an influence on the device behavior even at lower frequencies and therefore have to be well described in the modelling process. In this talk we will show, that specifically the stability prediction of devices models, even at low frequencies, can be much improved, when we consider the above stated high frequency effects. Nevertheless the precise characterization of these effects needs reliable on-wafer measurements at sub-millimeter frequencies, which is of course not straight forward achievable with a classical design of the on-wafer access- and test structures. Therefore this talk will additionally look at obstacles that occur during the planar on-wafer measurement for the device characterization at sub-millimeter frequencies. At the end we will present some interesting new approaches that are going to improve the main problems of device characterization at sub-millimeter frequencies.

With the continuous up-scaling of the maximum operation frequency of commercially available integration technologies, mm-wave circuits are entering real-life applications, such as automotive radar and high data rate wireless and wired links. In order to foster these device improvements and increase the penetration of mm-wave applications in the commercial world, the availability of accurate measurement techniques, for low-cost, large-volume technology platforms, is becoming a key requirement. However, the need to design accurate calibration kits in the same medium as that of the DUT, due to the error arising from calibration transfer at mm-waves, is colliding with complexities and stringent design rules encountered when integrating components is silicon technologies. In this presentation, an overview of all currently employed techniques for defining the parameters required by TRL calibrations are presented, highlighting advantages and drawbacks of the available approaches. Design guides to implement high precision TRL kits up to the sub-mm-wave range are given. The main drawbacks in terms of propagation of un-wanted modes and improper coupling through the probe to pad transition are also analyzed. Finally, the evaluation of the quality achieved by calibration kits integrated on commercially available silicon technology is presented.

This talk covers essential aspects of modeling surface roughness for microwave applications based on underlying physics. At first, surface roughness metrology and commonly used roughness parameters are described. Existing models and their limitations are discussed before the recently proposed Gradient Model is introduced. To this purpose, the modeling approach, the derivation from Maxwell‘s equations, model predictions and their experimental verification are shown. Then a corresponding surface impedance concept is derived, which allows for easy application of the Gradient Model with 3D field solvers or analytical models. Therewith obtained simulation results illustrate roughness impact on loss and phase delay in typical transmission lines. Comparison to measurement results up to 100GHz show, that the Gradient Model accurately predicts these quantities for rough conductor surfaces. Furthermore the impact from imperfect surfaces on planar CPW calibration standards is shown.

Taking together the NonLinear Vector Network Analyzer and the Spectrum Analyzer capabilities of a modern network analyzer makes available very accurate vector (IQ) measurements of wideband modulated test signals. As the active DUT (can be power amplifier or frequency converter devices) input and output waves are measured coherently within a calibrated network environment, new insights exhibiting the DUT stimulus/response under modulated signals are demonstrated.

The talk focuses on the recently introduced dynamic-bias measurement technique for transistor characterization at microwave and mm-wave frequencies. We will discuss various measurement set-ups to perform dynamic-bias measurements and show how to use these measurements in the modeling phase. Furthermore we will introduce dynamic-bias S-parameters, which can be directly derived from dynamic-bias measurements and represent a natural extension of classical multi-bias S-parameters. In particular, we will show how these parameters allows one to obtain a more effective characterization of low- and high-frequency dispersive effects.

Receiver performance can sometimes be a limiting issue in mm-wave, wide modulation bandwidth systems. The higher and wider IF frequencies can present some unique linearity and correction challenges particularly in variable gain and A/D conversion areas. This talk will explore some of the more subtle linearity and distortion issues at multi-GHz IFs, how they can be characterized, and sometimes mitigated or corrected.

The content might be described as "Under large-signal modulated excitations, RF PAs show significant inter-modulation and harmonic nonlinearities at the same time. In order to characterize the actual PA behavior in real life, the multi-harmonic modulated PA input/output waves have to be entirely and correctly measured. In the presentation, newly proposed phase reference and phase calibration techniques are introduced and discussed, based on which the NVNA test-bed could be developed for the full characterization of RF PAs under various wideband excitations. Moreover, other potential techniques and non-mature ideas under development are shared for discussion.

The behavioral models used for the representation of CW and modulated multi-harmonic data will be reviewed in this lecture. This will include the general multi-harmonic Volterra functions for CW periodic nonlinear RF excitations, the X-parameter/S-function approximations for mildly nonlinear RF excitations and their extension for broadband modulated multi-harmonic signals. Next this lecture will consider the characterization and mitigation of the impairments associated with the PA nonlinearities in SDR systems when the same power amplifier is used for the amplification of concurrent multiple-band signals (carrier aggregation). Both predistortion and feedforward approaches for modulated harmonic cancelation will also be presented. Finally this review will conclude with a discussion on nonlinear impairments in MIMO systems and advanced configurations for self-testing and adaptation which might be called up on for their mitigation.

We present a digital pre-distortion (DPD) method based on dynamic X-parameters. We first explain how long term memory effects can be modelled by dynamic X-parameters. Next we show how a dynamic X-parameter model can be inverted in order to generate a robust DPD method. The resulting DPD is more robust than existing DPD techniques as it works well for a wide range of modulation bandwidths and signal amplitude distributions.

The continuous growth of data rate requirements in modern wireless communications leads to more-and-more complex and wideband modulation signals that need to be processed by the transmit power amplifier with high fidelity at the lowest power consumption. These are making design, characterization and modeling of the power amplifier very challenging due to the combination of wide variability of the signal time statistics, high dynamic range and very large bandwidth. The presentation will summarize some recent advances on the behavioral modeling methodologies of the nonlinear memory of power amplifiers.

Massive MIMO, MMIMO, systems for 5-G wireless networks pose new problems to nonlinear transmitter modeling and its extraction. Contrary to conventional transmitters where the output amplifier drives a fixed load, mutual coupling between the elements of the MMIMO active antenna array is seen by the interacting power amplifiers, PAs, as a form of dynamic load modulation. Therefore, the fixed load condition, which is one of the strongest underlying assumptions in the traditional low-pass equivalent transmitter behavioral models, can no longer hold, and a single-input/dual-output formulation, for the nonlinear dynamic PAs, followed by a multi-input/multi-output network, representing the linear and dynamic radiation sub-system, must be adopted. The present talk addresses this new transmitter behavioral model formulation and the nonlinear vector network analyzer systems required to extract them. Various possible behavioral model formulations are reviewed in terms of complexity and accuracy while their corresponding measurements systems will be discussed in terms of both the required hardware measurement set-ups and modulated stimuli.

In this talk mixed-signal instrumentation and measurement approaches will be presented to characterize software defined radio and digital radio front ends for the new 5G communication paradigm. The talk will present the main drawbacks, the calibration procedures and the framework to apply D-parameters to mixed-signal integrated solutions for 5G. Some practical examples will be showed including the application of this approach to digital pre-distortion approaches.

In the early 90's , Cellular telecommunications adopted the GSM ( 2G) standard and opened up a significant market segment for GaAs solutions in the form of 4W GaAs HBT PAs for the handsets and low noise receivers for the base stations.Eversince , Si solutions have been catching up and nibbling off at the GaAs MMIC market share. The upcoming advent of 5G mobile telecommunications, will again put III/V solutions in the forefront. The move to Ka band hand sets as well as Ka , E ,and W bands infrastructure, paves the way to very advanced and economically sustainable GaN/Si transmit and receive MMICs. In this context , OMMIC has developed 100nm and 60nm GaN/Si processes offering unequalled power , linearity and low noise performance up to 100GHz at 12V, meeting the system requirements and fully replacing GaAs solutions. A full range of relevant 5G MMICs will be presented at the workshop including Ka band 10W PAs with 30% PAE and a full T/R chip.

In this presentation, various techniques to implement linear power amplifiers (PAs) for application in 5G communication will be first introduced. Specifically, techniques that are used to design SiGe and CMOS SOI RF to mm-wave PAs will be discussed in details. A technique adopted by the presenter and his group that is based on stacking of power amplifier cells in scaled CMOS SOI technologies is also presented. Stacking of PA cells facilitates relatively high output powers and wide bandwidths without a need to utilize on-chip power combining networks. Mechanisms that degrade linear output power and efficiency of PAs are also identified and ways to suppress these effects and enhance the PA power performance are presented. Several examples of high efficiency linear PAs based on standard scaled SiGe BiCMOS and CMOS SOI technologies with output powers approaching 1Watt and peak power added efficiencies in the excess of 20% will also be presented. Possible future directions for SiGe and CMOS SOI PAs for 5G applications and beyond will also be discussed.

Short Description: This paper will review the challenges for 5G mmWave power amplifiers for mobile and basestation terminals and examine a range of PA architectures, efficiency enhancement and linearization schemes. From the viewpoint of system and practical implementation requirements, the most promising techniques will be highlighted and compared in terms of the key figures of merit.

Mobile and backhaul transmitters for high-capacity networks are increasingly concerned with power consumption constraints. The desire for high average efficiency in RF and millimeter-wave systems has spurred interest in load and envelope modulation circuit techniques that are compatible with CMOS and/or SiGe BiCMOS technologies. This talk will present challenges confronting for wideband (up to 2 GHz) and high PAPR waveforms that have been proposed for 5G systems. I will present several examples of circuit solutions that we have developed to improve PA performance at back-off operating conditions through the use of Doherty, outphasing, and envelope tracking techniques at both microwave and millimeter-wave bands.

Compound semiconductor technology, and specifically GaAs, has captured a large and growing market share in wireless and optical systems by providing the optimum combination of RF performance and value. To remain the solution of choice in next generation systems and applications, GaAs technology has to compliment its inherent performance advantage with increased integration and functionality. Historically, GaAs has lagged Si technology in offering multiple device types on the same wafer (e,g, power, low noise, E/D logic, schottky diode, PIN diode, etc) to enable highly integrated multifunctional MMICs. This gap is rapidly closing and this presentation will describe several advanced GaAs platforms that incorporate new levels of functionality within high performance GaAs HBT and pHEMT technologies. These platforms provide users with a new set of tools to address the ever evolving and complex performance requirements of present and future communication systems.

From a PA performance point of view GaN PAs offer a lot of efficiency enhancement for 5G applications, especially in the new targeted PA bands from 3-6 GHz and at the mm-wave. Gallium Nitride IC technology further justify their existence in the 5G by very good performances for backhaul links around 30 GHz, around 60 GHz and at E-band. Further the good performance allows reduction of transistor numbers in amplifier stages which allows compact module integration in wavelength-limited spacing of active MIMO antennae to be deployed. The paper discusses novel Pas and MMICs between 3-6 GHz, 30 GHz, 60 GHz to 84 GHz which are in-line with the recent performance advancements of Gallium Nitride while maintaining the cost balance.

He will talk about a PA line-up consisting of CMOS based pre-PA and GaN power stage for array-antenna systems. He would also explain the biasing and power-on sequencing

This session will discuss the challenges and trade-offs for millimeter-wave 5G systems and the specific impact to PA requirements. Starting from a basic understanding of the 5G link budget and phased array architecture, the derived per element PA power levels are presented. Then an analysis on total power consumption will highlight sweet spots based on the performance and efficiency of different device technologies. The main frequency bands, spectral masks, and ACPR requirements will be discussed. A system level transmit chain line-up analysis will highlight the gain and linearity budget needed to support the high-order multi-carrier modulation schemes being proposed. Lattice spacing requirements and constraints on die size, packaging, and minimum integration levels will be discussed as well as thermal challenges and considerations. Finally, the advantages of GaN PAs for base-stations is discussed and recent performance results are presented.

Efficient non-contact vital sign accurate detection methods are needed to develop continuous tracking of elderly population, infants, and suicidal subjects 24/7 observation. Doppler radars and optical based imaging photoplethysmography (IPPG) have been successfully used non-contact vital sign detection. Both methods are presented and their limitations will be discussed.

THE PROBLEM? Measuring and monitoring any patient's vital signs is essential for their care- in fact, all care first begins by collecting vital signs like heart rate and blood pressure. The current standard of care is based on monitoring devices that require contact - electrocardiograms, pulse-oximeter, blood pressure cuffs, and chest straps. However, contact-based methods have serious limitations for monitoring vital signs of neonates as they have extremely sensitive skin and most contact-based vital sign monitoring techniques result in skin abrasions, peeling and damage every time the leads or patches are removed. This results in potentially dangerous sites for infection increasing the mortality risk to the neonates. OUR SOLUTION? We propose to use normal camera to measure the vital signs of a patient by simply recording video of their face in a non-contact manner. From the recorded video of the face, our algorithm, distancePPG, extracts pulse rate (PR), pulse rate variability (PRV) and breathing rate (BR). The algorithm is based on estimating tiny changes in skin color due to changes in blood volume underneath the skin surface (these changes are invisible to the naked eye, but can be captured by a camera). Our algorithm, distancePPG (patent pending), achieves clinical grade accuracy for all skin tones, under low light conditions and can account for natural motion of subjects. It does so by intelligently combining skin color change signal from different regions of the visible skin in a manner that improves the overall signal strength. Our algorithm results in as much as 6dB of SNR improvement in harsh scenarios, rapidly expanding the scope, viability, reach and utility of CameraVitals as a replacement for traditional contact-based vital sign monitor.

Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia. Over 5.2 million Americans have been diagnosed with AF, and the prevalence of AF is increasing concomitant with the aging of the U.S. population. AF exerts a significant negative impact on the longevity and quality of life of a growing number of Americans, predominantly through its association with an increased risk for heart failure and stroke. Effective AF treatments reduce a risk of complications from AF. A major challenge facing clinicians and researchers is the early detection of AF, because particularly in its early stages, AF can be intermittent and asymptomatic. While the population with undiagnosed AF is substantial, studies have shown that more intensive cardiac monitoring can improve AF detection and enable timelier institution of treatment. Automated AF detection algorithms offer real-time realizable AF detection but often suffer from the fact that common benign causes of rhythm irregularity, most notably premature atrial (PAC) and ventricular (PVC) contractions, can cause false positive AF detection. There is a pressing need to develop a continuous arrhythmia monitoring device that can accurately and reproducibly distinguish between AF, NSR, and premature beats (PACs and PVCs) in order to improve patients’ cardiovascular health and reduce the costs associated with treating AF. To this end, we have recently developed a smartphone application for arrhythmia discrimination, which can identify NSR, AF, PACs and PVCs using pulsatile time series collected from a smartphone’s camera. This application detects and removes motion and noise artifacts (MNAs). This talk discusses the development and clinical testing of arrhythmia discrimination. Given the ever-growing popularity of wearable devices and smartphones, our approach to arrhythmia discrimination will give the population as well as health care providers the opportunity to monitor arrhythmia under a wide variety of conditions outside of the physician’s office.

As a crucial advantage, the self-injection-locked (SIL) radar is highly sensitive and inherently immune to stationary clutter, such as that produced by background reflection and antenna coupling. This work presents the superiority of the SIL radar over the conventional continuous-wave (CW) radar in terms of sensitivity under the same conditions of clutter and power consumption. Moreover, with the help of signal processing or mutual-injection-locking techniques, an advanced SIL radar was developed to monitor human vital signs with reduced body motion artifacts.

In this talk, we will present test results of of monitoring respiration and heartbeat of laboratory rats/mice using a 60-GHz system-in-package integrated micro-radar to perform non-contact, non-invasive measurement. The system hardware, detection method, and data processing algorithm will be described. This system allows the lab animals’ respiration and heartbeat to be monitored continuously without the need of surgical implants and will eliminate the fatality rate through the surgical/recovery process

Body worn sensors can be used to capture a wide variety of human biometric data, and with the appropriate wireless infrastructure this information can be used to empower disruptive new systems for healthcare, security, and human machine interaction. Lightweight unobtrusive sensors worn close to the skin of as attachments or clothing can measure cardio-electric signals, bio-impedance, cardiopulmonary and limb motion, gestures, activity, and other useful biometric quantities. Such sensors can be passive or active, and in some cases can also harvest energy associated with these measures to power both sensing and wireless communications functions. The information collected by such systems can be used for applications including medical analysis for healthcare tracking, motion capture for motion compensation or virtual and augmented reality gaming or simulations, and for applications in subject identification and security. This presentation will cover theory and techniques for sensors, communications, and applications for a variety of wireless wearable systems.

Wearable smart sensors with embedded control and communication links have the potential to improve the quality of service in healthcare, security monitoring, and energy conservation. This presentation provides an overview of our research activities on wearable radar sensors for indoor tracking and health monitoring applications. In a smart building, short-range radars can map the environment and monitor health condition to benefit the human well-being. Starting from basic motion and range measurement theory, our recent research efforts on wearable FMCW/interferometry/UWB radar for position tracking, fall prevention and detection, and localization will be discussed. Technical details will be presented, followed by video demonstrations of the developed technologies. Finally, the outlook of wearable radar sensor will be discussed.

The medical device industry has been seeing a significant jump in technology with notable advancements in size and wireless capabilities. Increasing competition and maturing markets, particularly in cardiology applications, are also drivers for the recent advancements. Device miniaturization is allowing for pacemakers to be implanted via a catheterization procedure while some diagnostic devices can now be done in a simple doctor’s office procedure. On the wireless side, medical technology has avoided using the same frequencies as the consumer market due to concerns including interference and security. More recently, however, implantable devices are seeing a trend towards compatibility with consumer market devices with the use of bands like Bluetooth and the concept of bring-your-own-devices.

Abstract: Imaging photoplethysmography (IPPG) is noncontact physiological signal detection technology based on the traditional photoplethysmography (PPG), which could achieve some specific cases of clinical and daily detection such as physiological signal detection with open wounds and motion state. IPPG technology with its non-contact measurement, low cost and easy operation, has become one research hotspot in the field of the instrument and biomedical engineering. At present, some important physiological parameters such as heart rate, respiration rate, oxygen saturation, heart rate variability, blood pressure etc, have been detected through IPPG technology by our research group.

Abstract: Emerging 5G standards will actively rely on silicon mmWave systems as an enabling technology. This talk will provide a brief system context for the use of silicon in mmW applications, with particular attention paid to technology tradeoffs.

The increasing device performance of scaled bulk CMOS technologies (approaching 300GHz range for Ft and Fmax) has resulted in a wide usage of RFCMOS technologies, e.g. for cellular and connectivity applications. RFCMOS technologies are differentiated by enhanced device modeling, additional passive devices and improved metal stacks compared to their digital counterparts, but the device performance is typically a result from digital scaling. To cover additionally mmWave applications, it is important to understand how digital performance scaling (which is the driver for CMOS technologies) correlates to mmWave device performance. This correlation will be shown, based on scaling of physical device models. Based on this understanding and the CMOS technology roadmap and features, the best CMOS technologies can be selected. Trends and possible technology enhancements will also be discussed.

This talk presents a simplified version of the charge-based BSIM6-EKV MOSFET compact model and shows how it can be used to assess different bulk CMOS technologies in terms of current efficiency and RF performance using just a few parameters. The concept of inversion coefficient IC is first introduced as an essential design parameter that spans the entire range of operating points from weak via moderate to strong inversion. It is then shown how several important figures-of-merit (FoM) including the current efficiency G_m/I_D , the transit frequency F_t, their product (G_m·F_t)/I_D and the minimum noise factor F_min can be expressed in terms of IC to capture the various trade-offs encountered in RF circuit design. It is then explained how short-channel effects, and mainly velocity saturation, have significantly slowed down the increase of F_t and degraded F_min in recent technology nodes. The simplicity of this IC-based model is emphasized by comparing it against measurements from a 40- and a 28-nm bulk CMOS processes and BSIM6 simulations. Finally, it is shown how this simplified model can be extended to FDSOI and FinFET and used for a fair comparison between bulk, FDSOI and FinFET.

5G is the new era of networking that will expand upon the human possibilities of the connected world. Radio components that are both scalable (i.e., for mMIMO) and flexible (i.e., device integration) are key catalysts in realising low-latency, high-throughput networks. RF CMOS device scaling has provided a means to address cost-effective solutions, however, foreseeable 5G system requirements demand more beyond CMOS lateral scaling techniques. In this presentation, mm-wave RF CMOS devices, circuits and architectures will be examined, with an emphasis towards potential 5G systems applicability. Opportunities for technology enhancements will be discussed, while disseminating circuit design techniques that are amenable for the mm-wave connected world.

Advanced SiGe BiCMOS technologies offer today high-frequency SiGe HBTs with cut-off frequencies fT and fMAX beyond 300 GHz addressing a wide range of RF and mm-wave applications including high-data rate wired and wireless communications and radar for autonomous driving. Research results have demonstrated the potential for substantial further performance improvements of SiGe HBTs in future technology generations. SiGe HBTs with fT values of 500 GHz and fMAX values 700 GHz were realized recently. This talk will address performance perspectives and challenges for next generation SiGe BiCMOS technologies which integrate such HBTs with advanced CMOS nodes. We will discuss implications for existing applications in the 25, 60, and 77 GHz frequency bands and potential new application areas up to the lower THz range.

The emergence of mmWave applications, like 5G and Satcom, has opened up opportunities for the high-performance SiGe BiCMOS technologies which provides a sweet spot for performance and integration. In this talk we will present the GLOBALFOUNDRIES 130nm / 90nm SiGe BiCMOS technology portfolio for building mmWave front-end blocks cost effectively and give exemplary circuit examples. We will look at the challenges for future bipolar scaling to address the needs for these mmWave applications.

This tuturial will start with a brief overview on the most relevant physical effects in high-speed SiGe HBTs. The associated compact formulations and their integration in an advanced compact model will be presented. Next, the procedure for an as independent as possible determination of the model parameters will discussed with emphasis on being able to generate physics-based geometry scalable large-signal compact models. Selected examples for extraction steps and related results as well as for a comparison between model and experimental data of SiGe HBTs fabricated in the most advanced process technology will be provided. In particular, combining a physics-based compact model with a geometry scalable parameter extraction enables a quantification of the impact of various physical effects on device performance as valuable feedback for process development. Further model verification will be demonstrated by comparing simulation and measured data of various mm-wave benchmark circuits. Finally, major issues faced in the future regarding reliable compact modeling, parameter extraction and measurement capability will be discussed.

Experimental results for RF and wideband benchmarking circuits fabricated in 0.13um and 90nm SiGe-BiCMOS technologies are presented. The circuits include: a 130 GHz-bandwidth feedback amplifier, 54-65 GHz power amplifier, DC-100GHz frequency multipliers and dividers, and wideband data modulators. Technology aspects related to passive and active components on-chip applicable to all silicon technologies are also described.

This talk will highlight circuit and system capabilities for SiGe BiCMOS technology, for two specific case studies. First a W-band radar transceiver will be presented, and the key building blocks of the power amplifier, voltage-controlled oscillator, and mixer will be evaluated, together with technology aspects which result in improved performance. Second, millimeter-wave power amplifiers and transmit beamformers will be highlighted, together with design techniques which take advantage of the bipolar transistor to achieve high output power and high efficiency.

SOI technology is a great platform for RF applications due to the low parasitics of the transistor. Cellular and WIFI switches are now pervasively built in large lithographic SOI technologies. 45nm PDSOI has been widely investigated for many mmWave applications for phased array systems. The ability to stack transistors in PD SOI greatly increases the power handling and enables switches and power amplifiers to be built using low voltage CMOS devices. Fully depleted SOI extends the performance to even higher levels with a HighK-MG gate stack, 22nm gate length, and a thin silicon channel. This talk will describe the technology aspects that make SOI well suited for RF mmWave applications.

This presentation will briefly describe the structure and physics of partially depleted (PD), fully depleted (FD) and dynamically depleted (DD) SOI MOSFETs. The challenges and techniques of modelling each will then be discussed, with particular attention to the requirements for mmWave models. This will include all of the physical effects unique to SOI, including kink effect, self heating, non-quasistatic effects, body contacts, back gate modeling and substrate coupling. We will discuss the time constants associated with self heating and body effects. We describe the models for FEOL and BEOL line passives including lumped element passives such as varactors, resistors, capacitors, inductors and transformers as well as transmission lines components. We will also discuss the use of PCells, various choose for the PCell / PEX boundary and the incorporation of electromagnetic simulation into the design flow.

This presentation will discuss the main features of FD-SOI CMOS technology and how to efficiently use its unique features for RF and mm-wave SoCs. We will overview the impact of the back-gate bias on the measured I-V, transconductance, fT and fMAX characteristics and compare the MAG of FDSOI MOSFETs with those of planar bulk CMOS and SiGe BiCMOS transistors through measurements up to 325 GHz. Finally, we will provide examples of LNA, mixer, switches, and PA circuit topologies and layouts that make efficient use of the back-gate bias to overcome the limitations associated with the low breakdown voltage of sub 28nm CMOS technologies.

An overview of circuit design techniques and topologies for transceiver building blocks in deep sub-micron CMOS SOI will be presented. First, FET layout optimization considerations are given. Next, design examples of a 60GHz LNA, 24GHz VCO, 60GHz class-E PA, and a 60GHz t-line based phase shifter, all with state-of-the-art performance are provided. A fully-integrated 60 GHz transceiver in 32nm SOI CMOS, which integrates most of the above-mentioned building blocks, is presented to illustrate transceiver-level integration considerations. Finally, the challenges associated with process variability and test are outlined and examples of on-chip test and calibration techniques are given.

Has RF performance peaked; Are the glory days behind us? This panel will discuss the current state of silicon mmWave technologies and if we are really gaining much in RF with scaling across all technologies. What is the best silicon technology for RF/mmWave and where are we now with performance and scaling?

A wireless handset requires dozens of highly-selective narrow-band band-pass filters to couple signals that travel between the handset’s Antenna port and transceiver IC. These filters comprise a large portion of the front-end circuit of the handset and they are typically incorporated into a discrete RF front-end module along with power amplifiers, switches, and control logic. At the present time, SAW, BAW, and FBAR filters are the only known technologies with sufficiently low insertion loss and steep filter skirts which are available in sufficiently small hermetic packages for use as filter elements in front-end modules. The demand to incorporate additional filter functions increases with each successive handset generation. It has been suggested that tunable filters could be used to replace groups of fixed filters to either reduce the size of the front-end modules or to enable more filtering function in a module with a given size. This would also help to reduce the total cost of the front-end circuit. There are, however, numerous monumental technical challenges that make continuously and discretely tunable SAW, BAW, and FBAR filters impractical for use in front-end modules of wireless handsets. A common front-end configuration comprises a bank of filters which are switched in and out one at a time. A reconfigurable filter could be used in place of this switched bank of filters. However, for this to be feasible, the reconfigurable filter would need both frequency and bandwidth tuning “knobs”. To achieve this tunability, schemes have been proposed in which the frequency and kt2 of the constituent resonators of the filter are tuned in discrete steps. For example, banks of switched capacitors in series and in parallel with each resonator could be used for tuning; unfortunately, such banks of capacitors would significantly reduce the Q of the resonators, would occupy significant area and would reduce the power handling capability of a filter. Other schemes have been proposed in which the frequency of the constituent resonators is controlled by a dc voltage or magnetic field. Such devices have poor Q, don't have kt2 tunability, and are inherently non-linear, all of which are seriously performance limiting in the RF front-end. Another idea which has been proposed is to use an ultra-narrow tunable filter with steep filter skirts and a wide tuning range which could be tuned to a particular channel of interest. The problem with such a scheme is that modern 4G and LTE modulation protocols, require that the communication bandwidth vary from 0.2 MHz to more than 20 MHz and constructing a low insertion loss 20 MHz wide tunable filter with sharp filter skirts at GHz frequencies is unfeasible. The tunability problem is further exacerbated in the most recent handset generations where Carrier Aggregation (CA) functionality requires a handset to be capable of receiving multiple signals simultaneously. To enable CA functionality, a set of custom multiplexers is required. Each multiplexer: (1) is comprised of several filters which are attached to a single ANT port through a custom matching network and (2) must meet numerous RF specifications of the handset including not only the individual filter insertion loss, return loss, and isolation specs, but also a set of cross isolation specs between filters. Attempts to design a tunable version of a multiplexer comprising several tunable filters would be impractical because each tuned state of the multiplexer would need to comply with a different set of stringent spec requirements. Specifically, the fixed matching network will prevent the Tx and Rx ports of the multiplexer from having a tight "spot size" (return loss) over the full range of tuning, while the fixed cross couplings in the filter will prevent the precise frequency-placement of the poles and zeroes of filter function over the full range of tuning. Therefore, for the present and medium term, traditional filtering is the architecture of choice. As new bands and as new functionality such as 4-way MIMO are incorporated into RF front-ends, the number of filters per module will continue to increase. To respond to this pressure, technological innovation in piezoelectric filters must enable further reduction in filter size. A review of the evolution of this size scaling will be discussed as well as a discussion of module architectures which allow re-use of certain filters.

In current mobile communication equipment, a large number of filters and duplexers using surface and bulk acoustic wave (SAW/BAW) technologies are used to support multi-band and multi-standard operation. The number does not seem to be saturated. The increase made the RF frontend so complex, and introduction of MIMO and CA accelerate this trend further. One possible solution to overcome this problem is giving tunability to such devices. For ultimate down-sizing, use of MEMS technologies is mandatory not only for realization of tunable passive components but also for their hetero-integration with SAW/BAW devices and/or RF ICs. This talk discusses tunable SAW/BAW devices using the MEM technology. It is shown what are possible and what are not by using this approach.

For Software Definied Radios and other reconfigurale RF front-ends, flexibly programmable high-Q bandpass filtering and frequency conversion is a challenge. High linearity and blocker tolerance is crucial for interference robustness. Passive switch-R-C circuits, also known as N-path filters or Frequency Translated filters, can implement the desired functionality. They can both offer tunable filter functionality, but also frequency conversion with built-in RF-filtering. N-path filters essentially realize a low-pass R-C or high-pass C-R function in baseband, which is frequency translated to a band-pass or noth filter. As passive switch-R-C networks are used, linearity can be good. Moreover, the frequency translation is controlled by a digital clock, allowing for flexibly programmable very wide tuning range covering more than an octave or even decade in frequency. The resulting N-path filter benefits from CMOS scaling as switch parasitics improve, and increasingly higher digital clock frequencies are feasible. This workshop contribution will review the developments in CMOS N-path filters over the last decade, highlighthing promising achieved results, while also discussing performance limitations and challenges.

The talk will present the latest in RF MEMS tunable networks using the Cavendish RF MEMS varactors. Very high linearity and low loss tunable bandpass filters and notch filters in the 1-10 GHz region will be presented.

Adaptive and reconfigurable radios that can change their frequency and mode of operation based on the unused/available wireless spectrum as well as their surrounding environmental conditions have been proposed to address such challenges. However, currently available RF and microwave circuit components cannot meet the performance requirements, and cost constraints necessary for the commercialization of such systems. This presentation is on the applications of ferroelectric thin film barium strontium titanate (BST), a low loss, high dielectric constant field dependent multifunctional material. The electric field dependence of BST has been employed to design tunable RF and microwave devices and components. Another important characteristic of BST is its DC electric field induced piezoelectric and electrostrictive effect. These properties are utilized to design intrinsically switchable film bulk acoustic wave resonators (FBARs) and FBAR filters. Switchable ferroelectric based filter banks can significantly reduce size and power consumption of conventional filter banks employed in multi-standard and frequency agile radios. Properties and performance of several BST based adaptive and reconfigurable RF circuits will be presented.

4G networks integrators are demanding multiple RF tests which require large dynamic range and versatility. The continuous evolving of LTE bands are presenting a challenge to the design engineers, in terms of multiple modulation bandwidth and wide band span from 700MHz to 6000MHz. For Passive Components in the High Power environment, such as; Antennas, Filters, Cables Couplers, etc. the first and foremost requirement driving the dynamic range level is the PIM. That is, Passive intermodulation product due to two 20W carriers in the transmit band producing products in the Receive band, is required to be in the order of -165dBc. For components in the mobile side, such as: Switches, Filters, F.E.M, Etc. The IMD level is obviously higher, but other tests such as; Carrier Aggregation, Load-Pull, Harmonics, Jammers induced and more, are being conducted. Here, the tunable filter approach, often digitally controlled for flexibility, is considered. This presentation attempts to put together new block diagrams based on tunable and/or fixed filters to provide large dynamic range and versatility. In short, a cost effective system that can measure across multiple LTE bands and that can be expanded in a “Plug and Play” style.

While a plethora of center-frequency-tunable filters have been introduced over the last several years, transfer-function reconfiguration is significantly harder to achieve due to lack of appropriate architectures. New architectures are needed to address this need. It is the purpose of this talk to discuss such architectures that result in fully-reconfigurable bandpass and bandstop filters. Special attention will be paid to advanced topologies that enable reconfiguration of both poles and zeros of the filters. Besides single-band systems, multi-band reconfiguration techniques that allow independent control of each band will be reviewed. From a technology point of view, both planar and miniaturized cavity-based technologies will be discussed. Specifically, we will present proof-of-concept prototypes based on varactor-tuned microstrip resonators as well as tunable evanescent-mode cavity resonators. This talk will also briefly discuss the question of feedback versus open-loop control operation.

The first part of the talk is dedicated to reconfigurable Substrate-Integrated –Waveguide (SIW) filter and antenna structures and describes their tuning methodology and performance at microwave frequencies. The second part of the talk is dealing with design and implementation of tunable fluidic microwave filters and antennas, their advantages compared to other tuning techniques and their performance at microwave frequencies.

This talk will present the recent development on reconfigurable filter/antenna and antenna arrays. The first part of the talk will focus on designing the microwave filter and antenna as an inseparable unit which can achieve compact size and high efficiency. Tuning mechanisms are introduced in this filter/antenna so that the center frequency can be tuned. Special efforts are made to maintain the impedance matching across the tuning range by considering the frequency-dependent coupling coefficient. Both planar and 3-D designs will be presented. The second part of the talk will focus on reconfigurable antenna arrays which exhibit wide frequency range, continuous frequency coverage and large instantaneous bandwidth.

Phase change materials (PCM) are of great interest as they exhibit a phase transition from a semiconductor state to metal state through either thermal or optical excitation. They exhibit resistivity changes of several order of magnitude as they change state exhibiting a thermal reversible transition such as Vanadium Oxides (VO2) or a thermal switchable-latching transition such as Germanium Telluride (GeTe). While such materials have been widely employed in optical applications, Only very recently, there have been extensive research efforts to use them in RF applications. In particular, PCM-based RF switches combine the low insertion loss performance of MEMS technology and the small size and reliability performance of semiconductor technology. This talk addresses the use of both MEMS and PCM-based switches in the development of high-Q tunable filters.

One of the challenges of the future wireless networking systems is the delivery of the high throughout data connection to every cities, streets, and corner. While demand for data increases exponentially year after year, the distribution network to support such data demand is limited to the existing fiber and wireless connections. In this presentation we discuss how to provide high density connectivity as an extension to the fiber network utilizing mmWave modular antenna array systems and architecture. We discuss a flexible architecture that expands as the demand for network density increases.

Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) systems are becoming a critical component for 5G backhaul and infrastructure applications. This workshop describes the challenges that these applications present, how highly integrated silicon RFICs can meet those challenges and provide the requisite beam steering, amplitude taper, low noise amplification, and transmit power functions to enable planar arrays at 28 GHz and 39 GHz. Imbedded in the RFICs are an array of features that provide a high level of system flexibility not previously achievable in commercial AESAs.

Several radio concepts with the capability of providing a multi-gigabit transmission rate are currently investigated for 5G Access and Backhaul networks. Millimeter-wave communication is seen as one of the most promising key technologies, because of the wide spectrum available in this band. In order to be successful, High efficiency, high performance and low cost at mm-waves are required in the transceiver design, which poses several challenges for a MMIC design option. These technical challenges are discussed and some design solutions are presented which cover the frequency spectrum from Ka-Band to D-Band.

The constant increase of data traffic on the mobile communication network is pushing the manufacturers of digital radio links employed in wireless backhaul to evolve their products following some main guidelines: the adoption of more and more complex and spectrally efficient modulation schemes, the implementation of more sophisticated frequency reuse methods (i.e. MIMO in conjunction with XPIC), and the extension of the used frequency range beyond the e-band, where wider channels are available. Every step in these three directions is a challenge for both the microwave engineers and the DSP designers: the latter are constantly called to improve the digital algorithms employed to face not only the radio propagation issues, but also, more and more frequently, the effects of the analog hardware imperfections. This presentation talks briefly about the 'state of the art' of the modulation and coding schemes employed in digital radio links, and gives an overview of how the RF impairments are faced in the digital processing world while the complexity and performances of the radio equipment grow.

The backhaul networks are headed for a big change for coping with the massive increase of data that 5G brings. Higher bandwidths, more complex modulation formats and higher output power put challenging requirements on the hardware for achieving higher data rates. Transmitter and receiver architectures may look quite different from today’s line-up because of the tougher requirements on linearity, noise, efficiency and dynamic range. For the power amplifier in such equipment, the most critical parameters are output power and linearity to be able to use high modulation formats and higher output power for longer distance communications. Digital pre-distortion is nowadays common practice to linearize amplifiers at lower frequencies. Usually for microwave radios, this technique is implemented in the digital domain at the expense of increased bandwidth in the digital/analog converter (DAC). At mm-wave frequencies, when the signal channel bandwidth is much wider, the increased signal bandwidth used in the DAC will consume too high power, making this technique inappropriate to use for enhancing the radio performance. Analog pre-distortion of power amplifiers on the other hand can be implemented at mm-wave frequencies with little or no added power consumption to enhance the linearity. III-V technologies offer the best RF performance. GaAs High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) is the most used and established technology for mm-wave MMICs due to its satisfactory high frequency performance. The reliability, stable manufacturing, performance and pricing of GaAs are very competitive, which make this technology very attractive for commercial use. High bandgap materials such as GaN are emerging technologies that offer significantly higher output power and linearity and is a candidate for being the next generation’s technology. We present the challenges on circuit design, system solutions and linearized PA design for the future frontends in the 5G backhaul networks using III-V technologies.

The forthcoming 5 generation of mobile will strongly affect the whole network infrastructure, including the backhaul. Microwave and millimeter wave radios will be widely employed in future backhaul deployment. The power amplifier represents a crucial components in these radios, and it will probably need to shift its paradigm in terms of required power, bands, frequency, to cope with the new scenario. This talk will shortly introduce the present situation and the foreseen trends regarding the possible evolution of this fundamental block of the infrastructure.

Next generation 5G backhaul infrastructures requires large uninterrupted bandwidth to support high capacity wireless communications. Both 60GHz and E-Band offer the required bandwidth under unlicensed/lightly-licensed regulation. Further enhancement of data throughput is achieved by increasing the modulation order limited by linearity and noise performance of the transceiver. We will review fully-integrated low cost fixed beam high-performance SiGe based transceiver chipsets for the full band between 57-66GHz, and for the upper and lower E-Band regions. Full duplex throughput is used to utilize the full potential of the band standards in a point-to-point configuration. Both designs were optimized for high modulation up to 256QAM and high power to support above 10Gbps while meeting outdoor regulation set by FCC and ETSI. In addition, a 60GHz phased array for PTP and point-to-multipoint applications will be presented. The phased array is in a TDD configuration with extremely high power / linearity performance and low noise.

A modular beamforming architecture utilizing multiple beamforming ICs and a separate IQ modem IC is a very efficient solution for scalable 5G backhaul networks. The beamforming IC consists of amplifiers and vector modulators, and the modem IC includes up- and down-converters with an integrated PLL. The proposed solution is highly compact, and can be expanded in a modular fashion, making it suitable for communication in small-cell backhaul networks. In this presentation, IC development in 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS process as well as IC-/system-level characterization will be discussed.

In digital power amplifiers the analog signal is encoded in a pulse train and restored only at the output by a bandpass filter. In theory, this approach allows for PAs with high efficiency also at backoff, which has yet to be demonstrated in practice. Overall performance depends on the combination of coding/modulation, the PA circuit plus filter, and the resulting linearity behavior, which all differ significantly from the classical analog case. The presentation reviews the state of the art of such PAs targeting the wireless infrastructure. The key factors determining transmitter performance are discussed and recent results on novel modulation schemes and GaN PA with improved PAE are presented.

A single-bit digital transmitter, in which the RF digital stream including the wireless signal is generated and fed to the antenna after amplification and filtering, is a promising candidate for the next generation mobile communication systems since it offers high flexibility required for multi-mode/band transmitters. In addition, it has the great advantage to significantly improve power efficiency of the transmitter when a switch-mode power amplifier (SMPA) is employed at the final stage. In this talk, we introduce highly-efficient and –linear single-bit digital transmitters using envelope delta-sigma modulation architecture without full DPD and digital Doherty transmitters which enhances back-off efficiency by digitally controlling two SMPAs combined with each other in H-bridge configuration. Finally the future applications of digital transmitters, such as digital radio-over-fiber system or software-defined radio with FPGA-based all-digital transmitter will be presented.

Multi-band multi-mode operation of 4G/5G broadband mobile communication creates several new design challenges to traditional RF transmitter architectures. For reconfigurable and flexible spectrum usage with compact and low-cost implementation, digital-intensive transmitter architectures have been recently proposed with high-efficiency power amplifiers in compound semiconductors. 4G/5G carrier aggregation, particularly non-contiguous multi-band transmission, demands staggering design requirements on bandwidth and linearity, which are difficult to manage with conventional digital modulation techniques such as pulse-width modulation (PWM) and delta-sigma modulation (DSM). In order to ovrecome these challenges of digital-intensive transmitters for non-contiguous multi-band transmission, we present advanced power encoding techniques, demonstrated with a proof-of-concept GaN HEMT Class-D digital outphasing RF power amplifiers. For broadband operation, the quantization noise of digital modulation often becomes performance bottleneck, consequently requiring high-order RF output filters with high insertion loss. We present novel out-of-band noise cancellation techniques for digital-intensive transmitters.

Massive MIMO systems are one of the key technologies for 5G. By using a large number of antennas, it is possible to increase the number of users with beamforming and optimize the channel capacity by using orthogonal signals. However, the cost of a transmitter with tens of antennas is usually very high and the implementations tend to be complex and bulky. Moreover, by using independent radios we have to deal with special synchronization hardware. In this talk we present some recent developments on all-digital transceivers that use several Multigabit Transceivers existent on medium-/high-performance FPGAs. We have built a proof of concept system using a single FPGA with 8 transmitting antennas, with a carrier frequency of 2.5GHz. The phase alignment of the antenna signals is performed on the baseband. This phase array antenna has a measured beam angle resolution below 1 degree. In this architecture, besides the FPGA we only need one filter for each channel, leading to a very compact and low-complexity solution when compared with other proposed systems. We also present an overview over several FPGA-based Delta Sigma Digital-to-Analog Converters with a larger bandwidth and higher flexibility that can be included into the same system. For the receiving part of the antenna array we also show some recent results on an all-digital 1-bit RF PWM analog to digital converter that is a good candidate to build a a complete All-Digital Antenna Array Transceiver Module that can be used for a diversity of different application scenarios: MIMO, Phased Array Systems, Radar Systems, etc.

The continuing demand on power, performance and cost for wireless handsets has spurred immense research and development for digitally-intensive transceivers. Yet, the ever increasing data rate and frequency bandwidth exacerbate major challenges to realize digital transmitters suitable for every use scenario. A variety of architectures have been proposed to overcome the hurdles. This presentation will first review the trend of digital transmitter architectures. In light of the current and emerging wireless standards, new opportunities and obstacles will be discussed. The works to date represent a beginning of ongoing development for future-generation all-digital transmitters.

Results from a project targeting mm-wave 5G transmitters are here presented. The focus in this workshop presentation is put on two 28GHz power amplifiers (PAs) and an RF-DAC, designed in an ultra-thin body and buried oxide (UTBB) fully depleted silicon on insulator (FD-SOI) 28nm CMOS technology process. The SOI technology enables stacked devices to be used in the PAs where back-gate biasing is utilized. Partially floating cascode gate performance on ACLR and EVM is also presented. Additionally, a 10-bit RF-DAC using a digital upsampling filter to achieve 1GHz RF bandwidth with more than 45dB SNDR is demonstrated.

The switched capacitor power amplifier (SCPA) or radio frequency (RF) capacitive digital-to-analog converter (C-DAC) combines the functionality of a mixer, a digital-to-analog converter, and a power amplifier (PA). The superior amplitude-to-amplitude (AM-AM) and amplitude-to-phase (AM-PM) linearity makes the SCPA attractive for implementations in mobile communication systems for latest communication standards such as Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) or Long Term Evolution (LTE). In this talk the principle idea of the C-DAC as a configurable capacitive voltage divider, which additionally performs the mixing operation in dependency of the applied LO carrier signal, will be introduced. Two different transmitter structures, the IQ C-DAC based architecture and the polar C-DAC based architecture will be discussed. The C-DAC consists of an array of switched-capacitor cells, where each cell ideally consists of a CMOS inverter and a capacitor. An ideal C-DAC is perfectly linear. However, non-ideal components, i.e. switch parasitics and variations of the capacitors in the cells, cause the C-DAC to become non-linear, and thus generate AM-AM and AM-PM distortions. In addition, imperfect power supply sources generate unwanted harmonics in the C-DAC’s RF output signal. We present a switched non-linear state space model (SSM) which allows studying these effects with significantly reduced simulation run-time compared to circuit simulators. A comparison between the non-linear SSM, a transistor-level circuit model, and measurements on a 28 nm CMOS test chip is given for single tone as well as modulated LTE test signals. Furthermore, we will discuss digital pre-distortion concepts to improve the spectral regrowth behavior and the error vector magnitude (EVM) of an IQ C-DAC based architecture. The approaches have been validated using the non-linear SSM as well as circuit level simulations, and by measurements with the 28 nm CMOS test chip.

The central challenge of all-digital transmitters is the representation of the wanted RF signal by digital pulse patterns. This talk gives an overview over various encoding methods starting with analog time-continuous RF pulse-width-modulation up to a purely digital FPGA-based approach suited for Massive-MIMO systems. The FPGA-based system is capable of meeting the linearity requirements for modern mobile communication systems using individual multi-gigabit-transceiver ports. This is achieved thanks to an advanced combination of PWM and DSM preprocessing and a dedicated calibration algorithm. All presented concepts are evaluated based on simulations and measurements with focus on coding efficiency, signal quality and spectral emissions.

Future 5G standard at higher frequencies will ask for complex modulation scheme and antenna network to provide the requested high data rate. One of the solutions is to use beam forming to share the information over a huge number of elementary cells and propagate the total signal thanks to the antenna network. To do this, we need to ensure that all the front ends will perform in parallel. This represents a very interesting challenge. Indeed, the beam forming will be efficient if each of the elementary cells maintains its nominal “average” performance. This presentation will focus on a new approach of the PA design, to target this point. Particularly, we are focusing in a self-contained behavior of the PA, that allows it to tune and sense its performances regarding its environment, its own behavior, and the other PA ones. Even if this challenge will probably ask to reduce a little the state of the art performance, it would definitely warranty the final network one.

Despite their great potentials, the use of mm-wave devices has been limited by the precision required in their implementation. In this talk we discuss several examples of how the dynamic reconfigurability of such system can lead to improved performance, robustness, and added functionality. We will discuss several examples such as dynamic polarization control and self-healing circuits.

This presentation will explore fully digital architectures and circuit topologies for future wireless backhaul systems with aggregate data rates comparable to those of future 64Gbaud fiberoptic systems. Potential circuit topologies in 45nm SOI CMOS, 55nm and 28nm FDSOI SiGe BiCMOS will be reviewed along with measurements of digital transmitters with free space constellation formation at 100 GHz and 140 GHz. Predistortion and spectral shaping techniques in the transmitter, and receiver ADC-based equalization at 64 GBaud will also be discussed.

It is estimated that billions of silicon-based RF power amplifiers (PAs) are already in RF front end modules (FEMs) for 3G/4G handsets, WLAN, and other wireless applications today. The III-V semiconductor-based RF PAs, however, can still offer superior frequency and breakdown performance with higher output power (POUT) and power-added-efficiency (PAE) and faster time-to-market, but silicon-based RF PAs do have the advantages in offering higher monolithic integration with added functionalities (e.g., flexible on-chip digital control and selection on power level, modulation schemes, frequency bands, adaptive matching, predistortion, etc.), which can translate into lower cost and smaller sizes attractive for broadband multi-mode multi-band handset transmitters. The advancement from 4G into 5G will for sure increase the complexity for PA design, as the higher RF signal modulation bandwidth (e.g., 250/500MHz and above 1 GHz) for transmitters, stringent linearity and efficiency requirements at cm-Wave and mm-Wave carrier frequencies (e.g., 15/28/38/45/60/73 GHz), multiple antennas for beamforming and massive MIMO, etc. will be particularly challenging for both 5G PA design and testing. The peak the multiple carriers and clusters may result in more challenging waveforms with high peak-to-average-power-ratio (PAPR) for transmitters. The greater numbers of the supported bands, MIMO antennas and 5G small cells will require many more RF PAs and make the high PAE performance and low-cost particularly attractive; and the significantly reduced 5G PA peak POUT requirements appear to be favorable for silicon-based PAs implementation. Therefore, some potentially key design techniques for high-efficiency 5G broadband wireless PA design will be discussed in this talk. The design and testing challenges ahead for highly efficient linear wideband RF/mm-Wave PA are particularly serious for 5G applications, especially for mm-Wave and massive MIMO-like scenarios. I will try to address in this talk why some these very difficult challenges can, with or without the high-performance GaN/GaAs PA, also present as golden opportunities and great incentives for silicon PA development and advancement in market segments.

Achieving a very high bit rate up to multi tens of gigabits per second is one of the goals of fifth generation (5G) mobile communication networks. Higher frequency bands such as millimeter-wave band are identified as a promising avenue because they will provide a contiguous broadband spectrum. To utilize the higher frequency bands, phased array antenna systems with high antenna gain and beam-forming capability will be a key technology. This presentation reviews several schemes to control antenna beam direction on a phased array antenna system for 5G utilization, and introduces the recent research results at NTT DOCOMO laboratories.

A moving field inductive power transfer (MFIPT) system for supplying power to electric vehicles while driving along the route is described. This MFIPT system uses primary coils arranged below the pavement. The primary coils transmit the energy via an alternating magnetic field to a secondary coil located at the vehicle below its floor. Only those primary coils located below the secondary coil of a vehicle are excited. By this way losses and radiation in the environment are minimized. The operation principle of the moving field inductive power transfer system is based on a switched DC-to-DC converter which converts the DC power supplied by the stationary power line to DC power delivered to the moving electric vehicle. The dynamics, the operating regimes and the power balance of the moving field inductive power transfer system and the costs for the implementation of the system are discussed. The contactless power supply of electric vehicles on highways makes it possible to get along with battery capacities otherwise suitable only for shorter range. The batteries are used only in local traffic and on side roads where no moving field inductive power transfer system is installed. In areas where there are no inductive supply roads available, the inductive energy transmission system may still be used in stationary charging stations. Since only the primary coils below the vehicles are activated, high efficiency is achieved and the magnetic field is shielded against the environment. The MFIPT system is especially interesting for intelligent autonomous electric vehicles. In transportation systems based on this combination the electric vehicles will exchange information with traffic management systems and with each other and thereby achieve a steady, energy-efficient traffic flow even at very high vehicle densities.

The ability to provide power without wires was imagined over a century ago, but assumed commercially impractical and impossible to realise. However for more than two decades the University of Auckland has been at the forefront of developing and commercialising this technology alongside its industrial partners. This research has proven that significant wireless power can be transferred over relatively large air-gaps efficiently and robustly. Early solutions were applied in industrial applications to power moving vehicles in clean room systems, roadway lighting, industrial plants, and in theme parks, but more recently this research has helped develop technology that has the ability to impact us directly at home. The seminar will describe some of the early motivations behind this research, and introduce some of the solutions which have been developed by the team of researchers at Auckland over two decades, many of which have found their way into the market. It will also describe how the technology has recently been re-developed and is evolving to enable battery charging of electric vehicles without the need to plug in, and alongside this how it has the potential to change the way we drive in the future.

Wireless power transfer (WPT) is one of the most promising technologies in recent years, and the transportation systems with WPT technology are expected to create huge market in near future. As the transportation systems require high power over kilo-watt, the design should be differentiated from low power WPT systems. As the magnetic field strength is much larger than any other electronic system, the electromagnetic safety issue becomes crucial especially in railway WPT system where mega-watt of power is required. In this talk, wireless power transfer systems in vehicular applications and recent researches on electromagnetic safety for these high power WPT systems are introduced. Transmitting and receiving coil design, magnetic field shaping, and resonant reactive shield to minimize the leakage magnetic field in high-power low-frequency magnetic resonant WPT system are explained and related issues on standardization and commercialization are discussed.

Maximum link efficiency for mid range IPT systems often requires the system to operate at several MHz. This means significant challenges in the design of the electronics that drives the transmit coil and for the rectifier on the receiving coil. Achieving high power handling capability and efficiency at MHz frequencies is difficult with silicon devices and so this is an application where GaN and SiC transistors are especially well suited. A further requirement for high efficiency is the need to for the circuits to be soft switched and to be tolerant to changes in the geometry of the magnetic link. In this talk I will describe soft switched topologies suitable for high efficiency across a range of magnetic links, that reduce the stresses on the components and have minimal requirements for closed loop control bandwidth. The circuits are particularly suitable for ensuring ICNIRP regulations are met, even as the magnetic link geometry changes.

Inductive wireless power transfer (WPT) systems have traditionally been used for high-power large-gap near-field applications, such as electric vehicle (EV) charging. However, capacitive WPT systems can potentially be more efficient and less expensive as they do not require ferrite materials for flux guidance. This presentation addresses the design challenges and the tradeoffs associated with the design of a multi-modular capacitive WPT system suitable for stationary and in-motion EV charging. The system utilizes relative phasing of the different modules to achieve near-field field-focusing and hence maintains fringe fields within safety limits. The WPT system also requires matching networks that provide large voltage or current gain and reactive compensation. An analytical optimization approach for the design of L-section multistage matching networks is developed and utilized to maximize the matching network efficiency. The results of the proposed approach are validated using a 12-cm air-gap 6.78-MHz capacitive WPT system.

A nonconventional exploitation of a self-resonant near-field link at UHF for data communication, is combined in a compact inductive wireless power transfer system. At LF, the inductive channel is designed to deliver up to 1.3 kW to a resistive rotary heater. At UHF, sensing capabilities are made possible by exploiting self-resonant structures, such as split-ring resonators, one at each far-end side of the link. This network is used in a passive sensing system, to convert the data of a remote temperature sensor, representing the system variable load. The reflected power variations at the transmitter side, due to the dc load variations, are successfully used to perform the sensor readout.

The Philadelphia, PA, USA area is fortunate to have a set of amateur radio beacon transmitters between 50 MHz and 10 GHz for use by radio experimenters. These beacons are used at Villanova University as ‘real life’ signal sources for a number of undergraduate student projects in the Microwaves senior track area. The culminating project is a VHF to 30 MHz down converting receive front end which will be presented. Microstrip filters and other passive as well as active circuits will be covered in the presentation, with construction tips for those wishing to develop similar experiments at their institution.

The presentation describes a course covering the history of communication, the radio amateur’s contributions to the advancement of electronics technology and in public service. The course also provides a global perspective of the importance of communications in our society, and its relationship to the hobby of amateur radio. Special facets of amateur radio are discussed, such as digital communications/use of the Internet/WiFi, space communications and the search for extra terrestrial intelligence (SETI). The basic electronics and regulations needed for an amateur radio license is provided. Everyone completes the course with a Technician class amateur radio license, gaining proficiency in written and aural presentation skills. Each student completes three combination aural/written projects that require researching the answer to a question, presenting the answer using PowerPoint, and submitting a written report of six pages or more.

The presentation will give an overview of how Prof. Kronberger uses amateur radio in the communications engineering program at Cologne University. The students are encouraged to enter design competitions at conferences such as IMS and have had good success. His approach is very hands-on, including an amateur radio station in the engineering laboratory. Current student projects include the design of a 2.3 GHz dish antenna to facilitate moonbounce communication.

Dr Campbell has long used amateur radio as a means of providing students with real-world, project-based communication systems experience. Both analog and digital electronics are used, tying the fundamental circuitry to modern techniques used in professional wireless design. This presentation will discuss how the students apply an I/Q receiver design in the amateur radio bands to gain experience with multiple modulations and system-level design issues.

A sophomore class taken by 40-60 students every spring semester at the University of Colorado, Boulder, was developed based on Dave Rutledge's textbook built around the NorCal 40A 7 MHz transceiver. The radio is divided into nine functional sub-circuit boards that can be individually populated with components, tested and de-bugged within two-hour lab blocks. The sub-boards and then plugged into an interconnect mother-board, connected to an antenna and pairs of radios used for CW (Morse) communication at 7 MHz. All students take the Technician class license exam as a part of the course and over 90% receive their licenses. This talk will present the course organization, superheterodyne transceiver implementation, and testing challenges and solutions.

The presentation will outline the process of obtaining an amateur radio license in the United States, noting alternative processes in other countries. Various training and study materials available for licensees will be presented, along with references to successful training programs and methods.

Microwave and millimeterwave dielectric spectroscopy is a powerful technique for non-ionizing and non-destructive material characterization. Therefore, its development for the analysis of the living at the molecular and cellular levels is very attractive for biological researches and biomedical applications, where non-invasivity, label-free and contact-less abilities as well as in-liquid measurements constitute important leitmotivs. The talk will consequently present miniature biosensors and associated measurement techniques, which have been developed to characterize different biological materials in aqueous solution, such as biomolecules and cells in their culture medium. Possible sensitivity, specificity, frequency range and repeatability of measurements, especially with living materials, will be discussed. This presentation will also include the requirement of integrating fluid and cells manipulations within RF sensor architectures to achieve relevant biological and chemical applications. Such microwave and millimeterwave-based sensing devices open the door to innovative biological instrumentations, which could highly contribute toward a better diagnostic and treatment of diseases notably.

The high dielectric loss of aqueous solutions in the microwave frequency range allows the rapid, contactless, and spatially selective conversion of microwave energy into heat. For many life science applications, this is of great interest, most notably for PCR (polymerase chain reaction) applications and for applications whereby permittivity contrast between cell types allows selective thermal treatment on different biological scales, from single cells to tissues. To make such systems a reality, our group works on a number of critical aspects: 1) microfluidics-based dielectric spectroscopy with precise temperature control, 2) multi-physics modeling and design of microfluidic microwave heaters, and 3) characterization of the performance of microwave heater designs using synchronized fluorescence measurements (Rhodamine). To enable this, we have developed an experimental platform that combines dielectric spectroscopy (300 kHz – 26.5 GHz) with high-speed multi-channel fluorescence microscopy and temperature measurements using integrated Pt resistors. In this talk, we will give an overview of our experimental setup and its capabilities. We will also discuss our heater designs which were realized in a variety of technologies (LCP, HR-Si, waveguide) for applications on different scales (nl to ml volumes). We will also discuss how these designs can be extended to allow selective heating to be performed on the level of cells and tissues.

In any process, it is desired to streamline its execution, reduce costs and increase performance. Healthcare processes are no different and the trend is to give patients a custom made treatment. For this purpose, theranostic devices or systems are well suited since they provide a combination of diagnosis and therapy in a single device or system. Although the theranostic field is very broad, for certain applications microwave devices can play an important role by combining high sensitivity, good penetration and spatial resolution as well as marker- and reactionless operation. As a result, state of the art devices that can perform diagnosis, treatment or both with great advantages over classical methods are explored with great interest and will be possibly available in the next years. Some of these advantages are minimal invasive procedures, reduction of risk for the patient and secondary surgeries, faster recovery time and lower costs. In this talk will be first presented an overview of the theranostic field, what does the word mean and how electromagnetic devices can be integrated. Then the talk will focus on minimal invasive microwave devices for cancer therapy. These devices are theranostic instruments since they can make a diagnosis by analyzing the relative dielectric change between healthy and malignant tissue and perform treatment with thermal ablation. This is possible since the sensor and the applicator are based on identical electromagnetic interaction principles and can therefore be combined in a single theranostic instrument. The sensor element is based on microstrip/coplanar excited split ring resonators (SRR). The initial prototypes were bulky and could only detect the dielectric properties of organic tissue. Extensive work was done to reduce the size and its packaging to include them in a needle-like minimal invasive tool and create a second operation mode where the tissue could also be ablated with the same device.

Today, arteriosclerosis and correlated cardiovascular diseases are still the leading causes of death [1]. However, contemporary standard diagnosis methods such as e.g. sonography and angiography, show significant shortcomings in providing necessary data as a basis for efficient treatment of the various manifestations of atherosclerotic plaques. It is furthermore especially desirable to combine diagnostics and therapy in a single step operation, making miniaturized, compact, easy-to-combine diagnosis tools indispensable. The presented new method allows differentiation between lipid and calcified plaques based on dielectric characterization for early diagnosis and better therapeutic options. The nearfield sensor presented in [2] was developed in 130 nm SiGe technology and allows minimally invasive procedures to detect and categorize plaques in arteries based on their dielectric constant. The sensing oscillator is a common collector differential circuit based on a Colpitts topology which is coupled to a microstrip sensing element. For easy handling in laboratories, the chip is equipped with an RF to DC conversion circuitry to provide DC read-out capabilities. The final flexible polyamide interposer accommodating the chip has a length of 38 cm, a width of 1.2 mm and a thickness of 200 µm. Because of its minimal size the interposer completed a catheter with a diameter of 8F ready for further clinical use in cardiology and heart surgery. The sensor function was successfully tested with calibration fluids as well as human tissue exhibiting both types of plaques. The sensing instrument represents a relevant microsystem for minimally invasive plaque categorization, making it a powerful and compact diagnosis tool. [1] World Health Organization. The top 10 causes of death. Retrieved 6 April. 2016 [2] A Fully Integrated Low-Power K-Band Chem-Bio-Sensor with On-Chip DC Read-out in SiGe BiCMOS Technology, F. I. Jamal, S. Guha, M. H. Eissa, C. Meliani, H. J. Ng, D. Kissinger, and J. Wessel, Accepted in 46th European Microwave Conference (EuMC 2016)

The evolution of wireless power and data telemetry technologies fueled by continued advances in electronic systems and miniaturization of antennas and components played an important role in design and development of wireless medical devices in personal healthcare. This has led to numerous applications in medical diagnostics and therapeutics ranging from in vivo cardiac pacemakers and defibrillators to emerging devices in visual prosthesis, brain computer interfaces, and body area networks for sensing oxygen, glucose, pH level, pressure, temperature, and other medically useful quantities. Neural implants have become ubiquitous with some of them receiving FDA approvals for commercial use recently. Implants powered using batteries have limited life time and a surgical intervention is required to replace them. As batteries have finite recharge cycles, wirelessly charging the batteries only provides an incremental lifetime. Battery-free operation using sustainable wireless powering can extend the lifetime of implants as long as needed. An antenna is one of the most important components to ensure robust link performance. It is a great challenge to design an antenna inside a human body as critical constraints such as biocompatibility issues, antenna size and safety concern should be considered. Besides, due to the complexity and variation of human tissues, wide bandwidth is required in case of frequency shift. In this presentation, different approaches for wireless power and miniaturized antenna used in neural implants will be introduced and their performances are compared against the implant requirements. Then we discuss in detail our wireless platform for peripheral nerve implants with neural recording and muscle stimulation functions starting from the design considerations, power and data link design and safety. The designed wireless platform is tested acutely in rats and the performance of the link is reported.

Wireless powering and interrogation of bioelectronic devices could enable long-term operation of devices with both diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities. Enhanced depth of operation and miniaturization of the device at microwave frequencies can be achieved by shaping the field pattern within the body, but implementing the spatial phase control required to synthesize such patterns is challenging. In this talk, we describe electromagnetic structures, termed phased surfaces that interface with non-planar body surfaces and optimally modulate the phase response at microwave frequencies. Unlike phased arrays, the phased surface does not require phase delay or control circuits, enabling its integration into a conformal device. These surfaces can be operated in both the transmitting mode, in which an optimally focused field is generated by rapid phase variations, and the receiving mode, in which evanescent waves are coherently combined. We describe applications of these surfaces in wirelessly powering miniaturized stimulators and in enhancing signal reception from deep sensors to realize "theranostic" systems.

The ability to coherently coordinate separate wireless RF systems enables significant benefits in scalability, operational capabilities, and overall system cost. From distributed remote sensing on cubesats for improved measurements of the Earth, to distributed UAV arrays for better soil moisture mapping in agriculture, to ad-hoc arrays of cell phones or personal radios for increased range and throughput, such systems, referred to as coherent distributed arrays or coherent RF wireless networks, have significant potential for improvements in a broad range of wireless applications. Coherently coordinating separated, moving wireless nodes requires inter-node coordination that can enable and maintain coherence the RF carrier level. The primary challenges are in measuring the distances between the nodes to sub-wavelength accuracy, and wirelessly coordinating the time bases and clock frequencies of the separated nodes. This presentation will focus on a novel method of inter-node range measurement using spectrally sparse microwave waveforms. The optimal waveform for ranging accuracy will be derived, and a novel receiver designed to detect wideband, spectrally sparse waveforms will be described. Experimental measurements of the ranging method and an implementation in a coherent distributed microwave transmitter will be presented.

The information drawn from wireless sensors in Smart Home applications show their relevance in many cases only if the sensed data are interpreted together with the respective position of the sensor. This holds especially true for mobile assets that can be relocated within a building during usage. Furthermore, for consumer applications the systems must be operational without any knowledge in engineering and should require as little infrastructure as possible. In this framework this talk will discuss different indoor localization approaches and show the concept of a real wireless Smart Home system, its microwave hardware, and the performance of a novel algorithmic localization approach based on field strength measurements and multivariate statistic data processing.

Identifying, locating and tracking assets in industrial environments demands high accuracy and high precision localization as well as an integrated reliable communication channel. Radio frequency identification (RFID) systems for these applications need to mitigate strong multipath propagation and deliver high signal-to-noise ratios, but require cost- and energy-efficient transponder implementations for high volume deployment. Novel low-complexity transponder concepts based on active, but low power high-bandwidth architectures are proposed for millimeterwave bands. In addition, advanced inverse synthetic aperture algorithms for enhanced active and passive microwave RFIDs will be presented. The talk covers system theoretical boundaries, microwave and millimeter wave circuit and system design aspects as well as performance results in different application scenarios.

Miniature sensors with wireless communication and localization capabilities are of interest for IoT applications. While IoT spans a broad space, we focus on a class of applications that require low duty-cycle communication with small payloads (< 1000 bits) but battery-less operation due to lifetime, weight, area and volume constraints. Moreover, high-levels of SoC integration imply that sensor tag weight, area and volume are often limited by batteries and antennas. In this presentation, we will describe system and circuit level design approaches as well as performance constraints for implementing state-of-the-art wirelessly-powered low-power localization sensor tags in the context of an insect tracking application that imposes stringent sensor weight and volume limits.

The workshop concludes with the presentation of a complete wireless sensor network with localization functionality. The system has been designed for tracking flying wild bats with high accuracy in their natural habitat and analyzing their social behavior, i.e. proximity to other individuals. These goals have been reached by two different localization approaches in a distributed, hierarchical wireless sensor network. Due to the light weight of the bat species of interest of only 20 grams the senor node to be mounted on their back has to weigh below 2 grams. This leads to extremely limited resources concerning weight, size, and therefore battery capacity requiring a careful partitioning between system elements to be carried by the bat and to be placed in a ground network. The system concept will be discussed in detail followed by the design aspects for the miniaturized sensor node hardware including antenna, front-end, baseband, and power management and the ground network. Furthermore, the different localization techniques for accurate flight trajectory tracking and social contact monitoring will be presented. Measured data from field trials with wild bats in Germany and Panama will conclude the talk.

The talk will present the latest development in 5G communication systems at UCSD. The phased-arrays and related communication links will be discussed, both at 28 GHz and at 60 GHz. Prof. Rebeiz group has achieved Gbps over hundreds of meters, even kms, using phased-array technologies. All work is based on silicon RFICs and innovative packaging.

In this presentation, a CMOS millimeter-wave transceiver using 60-GHz carrier will be introduced for a 5G cellular communication. To realize 64QAM in a millimeter-wave transceiver, the requirements of RF front-end will be discussed especially about SNDR, image calibration, phase noise with digitally-assisted calibration techniques.

The talk will present the latest development in 28 GHz integrated CMOS front-ends for 5G terminals at TAMU. The front-ends including CMOS wide-band mm-wave PAs (with high-linearity and efficiency) and LNAs both with gain control and both cascaded with phase shifters for TX/RX phase control in phased arrays will be discussed .

In this talk, the research advances in millimeter wave technologies, such as ICs and massive MIMO (based on digital multibeam array) systems for 5G in the State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves (SKLMMW) are reviewed.

This talk including two parts, one is the 38 GHz transmitter and receiver (T/R) module development, the other is the 5G channel measurement technique. For 38 GHz T/R module, the critical specification such as linearity, phase noise, and heat sinking will be discussed. The technique used for the challenge to integrate multiple T/R modules such as SIP, or multiple layer PCB boards will also be included. For the issue about channel measurement, channel properties are important for wireless communication system design. In 5G communication system, due to the adopt of narrow beam steering function, the channel properties are much different than the conventional channel properties which use omni direction antennas. Therefore, the properties such as the path loss, delay spread, blockage, and coverage have to be measured under the controlling of the angle of arrival (AoA) and angle of departure (AoD). Because the bandwidth is wide in 5G communication system, the resolution of the delay spread have to be high. Both beam steering and the high resolution requirements give the challenge for the design of the channel measurement system. Because the scanning of AoA and AoD, large amount of measurements have to be measured and this is time-consumed. Because the resolution of the delay spread is high, the captured data quantities are large and the processing time is also time-consumed. This talk focuses on the building of the channel sounder which is operated in 38 GHz and for the measurement of the channel properties of 5G system. In this talk, the discussion topic covers the hardware and the software issues. The measurement methodology to achieve fast and accurate channel properties will be described. Finally, some example of the measurement results will be shown.

Existing standards for Gb/s connectivity such as IEEE 802.11ad and forthcoming 5G technology call for the integration of mmWave transceivers into handset devices. Such integration faces important challenges including: (1) mobile devices have stringent form factors and power budgets; (2) single antenna mmWave transceivers would require users to point the device to establish a link, in contrast to the omni-directional experience offered by Wi-Fi; (3) packaging and test must be cost efficient. Addressing these challenges, this work presents a 60 GHz CMOS TRX that achieves broad link coverage through switched antennas integrated in a low-cost MLO package, features low-power consumption (

Moderated by the organizers, the attendees will develop a list of perceived issues in designing next-generation radar systems. This list will guide the interest and focus of the presenters and attendees for the remainder of the workshop.

Today’s military radars are being challenged to satisfy multiple mission requirements and operate in complex, dynamic electromagnetic (EM) environments. They are simultaneously constrained by practical considerations like cost, size, weight and power (SWaP), and lifecycle requirements. Future Army radars need to be capable of efficient, multi-function, multi-mission operation and cannot afford to sacrifice performance for expanded mission capability. This presents a variety of design challenges across a broad range of perspectives, including device technology, signal processing, and systems architecture. The Army Research Laboratory (ARL) is focusing on development of adaptable and multi-band radio frequency (RF) technology building blocks for future more capable radar and RF systems. Ongoing efforts leverage several key emerging trends in radar research including development of efficient, multi-band and wideband GaN circuits, adaptable RF amplifiers and components, agile and digital waveform generation, and cognitive RF technology. A main goal of this effort is development of a technology framework that supports RF convergence of traditional radar, electronic warfare, and communication RF modalities.

The presentation will begin by discussing microwave tubes from a historical perspective as applied to radar, the different types of tubes, such as the klystron and cross field amplifier and their differences in terms of bandwidth, stability, output power, and spectral purity. Electromagnetic theory unique to microwave tubes will be reviewed. The internal circuitry, such as cathodes, slow wave structures and cavities and how they contribute to microwave tube functionality will be examined. The discussion will subsequently delve into the interfaces, topology and circuitry necessary to support microwave tubes in radar transmitters. Modulators and power supplies and their various configurations will be presented. Protective measures that prevent arcing in tubes will be described. Finally, the trade-offs between tube based versus solid-state power amplifiers for radar transmitters will be discussed in the context of: (1) cost; (2) performance; (3) supporting components and circuitry; and (4) the spectral purity of emissions.

Challenges for a next generation radar require continued exploration of new approaches for the design and fabrication of modular components that fit into open architectures, offering processing flexibility, agility and efficiency across radar bands. Key efforts will leverage investment in gallium nitride technology to improve radar capabilities. With efforts to mature GaN for production, this semiconductor material enables radars to operate up to five times more powerfully than systems with older semiconductor technology, and provides efficient use of generator power. GaN components generate RF at 1/3 the cost per watt compared to gallium arsenide alternatives, deliver higher power density and efficiency, and have demonstrated mean time between failures at an impressive 100 million hours. This will enable Next Generation Radar to efficiently and affordably provide much higher performance.

This presentation describes the development of adaptive amplifiers for the next-generation radar. Adaptive amplifiers facilitate dynamic spectrum allocation by re-tuning the circuit for optimal performance in different frequency bands and with different spectral assignments. Algorithms for fast tuning of radar amplifier circuitry and waveforms for range/Doppler detection and power-added efficiency while meeting spectral mask requirements are thoroughly discussed. The ongoing development of a next-generation reconfigurable circuit prototype is described. Topics including characterization of tunable matching circuits for nonlinear performance and issues associated with real-time optimization are overviewed.

While both solid-state and MEMS devices are promising candidates for reconfigurable communication systems, they are primarily limited to low-power operating conditions. High-power reconfigurable systems (e.g. radar systems) are significantly more challenging to achieve primarily due to lack of high-performance high-power components. This talk will discuss novel technologies that have the potential to yield such components. Specifically, we will focus on cold-plasma-based miniaturized RF devices. We will first review the basic physical principles of this technology and primarily focus on the expected RF response. Proper operating regimes will be highlighted and optimal conditions will be discussed. Proof-of-concept prototypes of tunable limiters and resonators based on commercial gas discharge tubes will also be presented. The talk will conclude by discussing limitations of this technology and future opportunities.

A panel discussion including the organizers and speakers will allow the audience to apply the information they have been given in working with the speakers to map a road-map for the design of next-generation radar systems.

Compared to conventional optical or biochemical characterization of biological cells, broadband electromagnetic characterization can be fast, compact and label free. Additionally, the frequency of the electromagnetic waves can be varied over many decades to detect different subcellular structures that respond at difference length and time scales. For example, using transmission lines fabricated by thin-film technology with feature size on the order of 10 micrometers, we have successfully differentiated live and dead mammalian cells at megahertz frequencies and extracted cytoplasm resistance and capacitance at gigahertz frequencies. However, to extend electromagnetic characterization of biological cells to nanometer scale and terahertz frequency, it will be necessary to use state-of-the-art silicon CMOS technology to fabricate test structures with submicron feature size, as well as on-chip generator/detector for near-field terahertz characterization. This is mainly because biological cells must be kept alive in an aqueous solution, but terahertz waves tend to be absorbed and scattered by the aqueous solution. This talk will review the progress toward this end.

The application of scanning microwave microscopy (SMM) to extract calibrated electrical properties of single cells and bacteria in air is presented. From the S11 images complex impedance and admittance1,2 images of Chinese hamster ovary cells and E. coli bacteria deposited on a silicon substrate have been obtained3. The broadband capabilities of SMM are used to characterize the bio-samples between 1GHz and 20GHz. Based on a proposed parallel resistance–capacitance model, the equivalent conductance and parallel capacitance of the cells and bacteria were obtained from the SMM images. The in?uence of humidity and frequency on the cell conductance was experimentally studied and the effect of water in the dielectric spectrum was investigated. Complex impedance images have been analyzed to extract dielectric images of the bacterial cells4. 3D finite element modelling of the probe sample system was carried out to support quantitative data interpretation and subsurface imaging of cell internal structures5. 1 Nanotechnology, 25, 145703 (2014); 2 IEEE IMS Proceedings (2016), 4pp 3 Nanotechnology 27(2016)135702(9pp) 4 ACS Nano, 2016, 10 (1), pp 280–288 5 Nanotechnology, 26, 13 (2015)

Microwave and millimeterwave dielectric spectroscopy is a powerful technique for the non-ionizing and non-destructive material characterization. Therefore, its development for the analysis of the living at the molecular and cellular levels is very attractive for biological researches and biomedical applications, where non-invasivity, label-free and contact-less abilities as well as in-liquid measurements constitute important leitmotivs. The talk will consequently focus on the interaction of microwave and millimeterwave radiations exploited to characterize cells directly in their culture medium. Miniature biosensors and associated techniques have consequently been developed. Measurements of cells suspensions measurements and for individual cells in different biological contexts will be given. Sensitivity, specificity and repeatability of measurements will also be highlighted.

Owing to the use of quasi-static low-energy field, Scanning Microwave Microscopy (SMM) can reach nanometric and atomic resolution in spite of the relatively long wavelength of the used signal, while at the same time allowing non-invasive quantitative measurements, possibly penetrating samples under their surface. This set of features make SMM as an ideal candidate for future studies in nanobiology, in the characterization of cellular and subcellular structures by means of their electrical properties. This talk will address the latest results and challenges in the use of broadband SMM in the characterization subcellular structures like cellular membrane, exosomes and mithocondria. In particular, exosomes, which are nanometric vescicles discovered in the past decade, have recently been demonstrated to have a role in intracellular communication; hence they are potentially interesting biomarkers deserving further investigations.

Microwave measurements reveal information about a fluid’s behavior in electromagnetic fields, which can be related to important characteristics such as chemical composition and reactivity. For chemical manufacturers and the pharmaceutical industry, such measurements can be used for quality assurance or to monitor various electrical, chemical, and mechanical processes. NIST has contributed to these tools through the development of on-chip coplanar waveguides (CPW) with integrated microfluidic channels. While an important step, the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) channels in prior work had several disadvantages, including chemical compatibility, alignment, pressure handling, channel routing and complexity. To address these problems and leverage the recently developed Microwave Uncertainty Framework, a new microwave microfluidic chip with encapsulated SU-8 polymer channels has been developed along with a companion manifold. Here, I will review our prior work and present our new microwave microfluidic device structure, the culmination of nearly six years of work. I will provide a detailed summary of our fabrication procedures, including design considerations and constraints. Finally, I will show complex permittivity measurements of water to 110 GHz with uncertainties.

Creo Medical has been focusing on the design and development of new advanced energy electrosurgical systems and thermal effects on biological tissues over the last two decades. Combined radiofrequency (RF), microwave and millimeter-wave energy has a strong potential for future use in treating a number of clinical conditions, where control of depth, uniformity over the area of treatment and impedance matching to various tissue types are of paramount importance. This contribution considers new advanced electrosurgical systems that combine the advantages associated with the use of low frequency RF energy and high frequency microwave/millimeter-wave energy to enhance the overall clinical effect. It is discussed how the frequency of operation and the design of the antenna structure can be optimized to ensure the desired tissue effects are achieved. This talk also considers how recently introduced clinical techniques, such as Endoscopic Submucosal Dissection (ESD), Per-Oral Endoscopic Myotomy (POEM), Transanal Endoscopic Mucosal Surgery (TEMS) and Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangio-Pancreatography (ERCP) can be carried out more effectively using advanced energy electrosurgical systems.

Irreversible Electroporation (IRE) is a new focal ablation technique to treat patients with unresectable tumors. IRE therapy uses small (1-2mm) surgical probes to deliver low-energy yet high voltage (e.g., Eighty 100us 2000V pulses delivered at 1Hz) pulses. These pulses induce nanoscale defects within the lipid bilayers of the targeted tissue, killing the cells with sub-millimeter resolution at therapy margins. Treatment planning is complicated by the fact that the field distribution, the greatest single factor controlling the extents of IRE, depends on the electrode configuration, pulse parameters and any tissue heterogeneities. Of critical importance is ensuring sufficient field delivery to the tumor while mitigating deleterious effects, such as thermal damage due to Joule heating, to healthy tissue. We are currently developing IRE for the treatment of Malignant Glioma (MG), and in particular Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), which has a patient median survival of only 15 months. Our preclinical work to date has focused on helping canine patients with naturally occurring MG, which are excellent translational models of human MG. Results of our ongoing trials have been extremely positive, further supporting that IRE is effective for the treatment of MG, including tumors refractory to surgery, radio- and chemotherapies.

Increasing the permeability of a biological cell membrane using intense pulsed electric fields has found numerous biological and medical applications such as genetic modification, drug delivery and treatment of cancers. Electroporation using nanosecond to millisecond pulses of the proper intensity generates transient pores in the cell membrane through which ions and polar molecules can transport. In addition to conventional methods of studying electroporation, such as dye techniques, fluorescent cytometry, and patch-clamp techniques, dielectric spectroscopy based methods have become important as a new electronic label-free and non-invasive modality to investigate the phenomenon. This is not surprising as the creation of conductive pores and influx/efflux of molecules cause significant changes in the dielectric properties of the cell. Of interest in many applications is knowledge of how the physiology of the field-exposed cell changes on very short to very long time scales. In this presentation we focus on the time-dependent response of cells exposed to pulsed electric fields of different field intensities and pulse protocols and how this can be measured. In particular, we describe an in-flow dielectrophoresis cytometry technique, which is used to capture and continuously monitor the dielectric change of single cells. The approach uses a microfluidic device with arrays of electrodes for microwave detection, dielectrophoresis actuation and pulsed field exposure of cells. It is sensitive enough to differentiate intracellular electrical properties and relate these to membrane, cytoplasm, nuclear material and structural changes. We demonstrate how cell cytoplasm conductivity changes due to pulsed electric field exposure and relate this to ion concentration.

Separating the thermal and possible non-thermal biological effects of microwave frequency electromagnetic fields is a non-trivial matter. This is because heating is an inevitable consequence of exposing dielectric material to elevated microwave electric fields. To investigate these effects, we use two methods: (1) a TM010 mode cavity resonant at 2.45 GHz, and (2) coplanar waveguide launchers capable of applying electromagnetic fields over a wide bandwidth (from DC to 3 GHz). Both these methods enable separation of electric and magnetic field effects, as well as precise control of field exposure levels (in terms of both amplitude and duty cycle). Using these methods, temperature rises can be monitored externally (via a thermal imaging camera or infrared pyrometry) or internally (via fibre an optic fibre sensor or fluorescence reporters). We are applying these methods to investigating the effects of microwave fields on a range of biological systems, including bacterial bioluminescence, motility of a protozoan fish parasite, and sub-cellular fluorescent reporters in human breast cancer cell lines. Our current project looks at the effects on human cardiac cells, with biomedical applications ranging from an enhanced understanding of possible microwave-induced cardiac dysfunction to improved methods for thermal ablation therapy.

The growing interest on the mm-wave and THz sensing of biological cells stimulates the research community for novel techniques to increase the sensitivity and miniaturize the systems. The major obstacle so far to miniaturize the overall systems is the requirement of combining different modules of the systems; such as microfluidic channels, sensor and control/read-out CMOS electronics. Miniaturized and smart system can only be achieved when all these different parts are combined in a single chip. The high frequency responses of bio-samples are of great interest to research community which is expected to open the way for many different detection techniques. In this talk, a glass based microfluidics technology, integrated heterogeneously to a high speed BiCMOS process will be presented. The wafer-level integration allowing potential for mass production will be discussed. The technology details together with the integration challenges will be detailed. Different mm-wave and THz sensing examples will also be provided under this talk. Lastly, potential Multi-project-access (MPW) to the combined microfluidic+BiCMOS technology for research and prototyping will also be explained.

With mobile communication modems poised to crack the Gigabit-per-second barrier, the requirements for the cellular radio front-end and the transceivers are steadily driven towards higher complexity: More bands and more bandwidth, concurrent operation in several of these, more MIMO layers, and higher order modulation trending towards 256QAM (and beyond?). This quickly increasing complexity stresses the implementation of the radios since PCB area and power envelope are highly constrained in mobile phones and thus components need to shrink and the power dissipation per function must decrease. Therefore, new concepts are needed in front-end design as well as transceiver architectures. In this presentation, the current radio implementations are reviewed and the resulting challenges discussed. For the path towards Gbps modems the options for the realization of advanced features are investigated, looking into further scaling-up of current approaches or the implementation of new ideas to tackle challenges like 4-band downlink carrier aggregation, 100 MHz of contiguous bandwidth, uplink carrier aggregation progressing from continuous intra-band to inter-band, and the inclusion of new frequency bands reaching from 600 MHz all the way up to 6 GHz.

The cellar phone service started in Japan in 1979. Around the same time, researchers in Hitachi started to investigate SAW devices for its use. This was a dawn of RF SAW devices. In late 1980s, pocket size mobile phones such as Micro TAC were released, and they became popular year by year. In 1992, Fujitsu proposed the ladder-type configuration, and TOYOCOM did the double-mode one. They were sensational: owing to excellent performances, RF SAW devices employ these configurations were began to use widely in the RF front end of mobile phones, and are still in active. In 1996, 42-LT was invented. This reduced SAW propagation loss drastically, and expanded their applicability. In 2000, HP developed FBAR PCS duplexers, and endless battle between two technologies were started. It sounds such history flowed without stagnation. However, technological progress I have seen was quite discontinuous, and was critically dependent on the market size and future outlook based on the global economy at those times. This talk deals with a history of RF SAW /BAW devices for last 35 years which I have seen from the back stage.

With the advent of LTE-carrier aggregation in today’s mobile communication systems, there is an ever increasing need for high performance multiplexer networks, which enable the support of multiple frequency bands through the same antenna, effectively increasing the available bandwidth and hence the communication bit rate. In addition to traditional filter requirements such as low insertion and return losses, high out-of-band rejection, and good linearity, the design of multiplexers poses a number of new challenges and constraints when designing the constituent filter components. Filters in a multiplexer need to collectively present a relatively high impedance to each filter in its passband, in order to minimize loading and maintain good in-band performance. This necessitates filter co-design methodologies that properly account for loading effects within multiplexers. Proper care is warranted in designing acoustic resonators to avoid unwanted spurious modes from falling in other operational bands within the multiplexer, since these unwanted modes provide a form of resistive loading that adversely degrades in-band performance. This presentation aims to provide an overview of the aforementioned challenges encountered in multiplexer design and some methods by which they can be tackled.

Today’s mobile communication systems require increasing higher data rates. Therefore carrier aggregation (CA) has been introduced as part of the LTE-advanced standard. CA allows to combine two or more frequency channels to achieve the requested higher data rates. As CA systems need to provide downlink and uplink data transfer at the same time and especially of various combined channels, the RF front-end architecture becomes more complex and needs to be aligned accordingly. Therefore multiplexers are required to provide frequency filtering of different bands at the same time. This presentation describes the use of multiplexers for CA applications. Also special multiplexer requirements and trade-offs are discussed regarding low insertion loss, high in-band and cross-isolations, limitations in downsizing of acoustics and packages of multiplexers as well as the importance of frequency stability. Challenges for design and simulation are described. Measurement results of multiplexers demonstrate that even high performance requirements can be met.

RF front end modules (FEM) have increased in complexity dramatically over the last few years driven largely by the high band count and need to support carrier aggregation of many band combinations (all requiring high cross-isolation to avoid de-sense). The need for reduced size and cost per band conflicts with the need for increased functionality and better insertion loss requiring more optimal architectures carefully balancing the number of filters combined in multiplexers vs. SOI switches. The number of CA combinations far exceeds the number of bands, so flexibility in band combinations is required and filters with minimal out-of-band spurious modes that do not degrade each other's performance are highly desirable.

The user segment of wireless communication systems takes profit of the outstanding performance of filtering devices based on acoustic resonators. With a spectrum more and more overcrowded, the design of filters and duplexers in mobile devices is becoming a challenging task. The major reasons are stringent transmission response and a very restrictive technology. The work presents a methodology that provides a systematic synthesis procedure for designing ladder filters and multiplexers based on acoustic wave resonators. The methodology uses a nodal approach based on resonating (RN) and non-resonating nodes (NRN). This procedure is time efficient, precise in the outcomes, and provides a deep understanding of the particular interactions between technology constraints and device performance. The main advantages of inline extracted pole filters with NRNs are features that can be observed in the well-established acoustic wave based ladder structures: they exhibit the property of modularity, since the position of transmission zeros can be controlled independently by tuning resonant frequencies of the resonators, and they are able to create a fully canonical filter without the need of a direct coupling between source and load, but exists through a reactive path. The methodology is ready to accommodate cross couplings.

Requirements for radio frequency (RF) devices in 4th generation (4G) mobile phones have been getting more stringent, especially in multiband / carrier aggregation systems constructing many RF components. In addition, discussions on 5th generation (5G) system have been progressing. In this workshop, first, we will introduce system trend and requirement for 4G and 5G, and then key factors for RF-filter devices and performances will be reviewed and discussed. It is well-known that filter performances are much dependent on Q factor, electro-mechanical coupling factor (K2) and temperature coefficient of frequency (TCF) and enhancing them is crucial job. Q-effect for steep cut-off and low insertion loss of a filter is often discussed . Not only Q but also K2 gives big impact for filter insertion loss. Co-doped AlN materials for Hi-K2 and FBAR performances developed by our team will be introduced . Then, we will introduce temperature compensated (TC) technologies and TC-FBAR using F-doped SiO2 with large positive temperature coefficient of velocity (TCV). Finally, approaches for 5G will be discussed on not only SAW/FBAR but also multilayer ceramic technology.

Recently, Lithium Niobate (LN) laterally vibrating resonators have emerged as a promising alternative acoustic technology for future front-end. These resonators and filters are implemented based on transferred LN thin films of single crystal quality on carrier substrates. This technology platform supports the propagation of various acoustic modes with high Q and high electromechanical coupling simultaneously. In addition, due to their lateral mode of operation, multiple center frequencies can be monolithically defined and intimately integrated with switching components for reconfiguration or aggregation. In this talk, a review of the LN LVR development will be first presented and followed by the discussions of overcoming the remaining technology bottlenecks in its path to commercialization.

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Additive manufacturing technologies are currently envisaged to boost the development of a next generation of microwave and millimeter-wave devices intended to, among others, satellite telecommunications, navigation, imaging, radio-astronomy, and cosmology. Due to their excellent electromagnetic and mechanical properties, all-metal passive waveguide components are key building-blocks of several RF systems used in these application domains. This talk will report on: - the prospects originating from the application of all-metal 3D printing to the manufacturing of high-performance microwave waveguide devices; - description of the selective laser melting (SLM) and stereo-litography apparatus (SLA) processes; - robust design of microwave filters intended to 3D printing; - bread-boarding of Ku and K-band components through SLM (with aluminum, titanium and steel alloys) and SLA. - trade-off-analysis among the AM processes applied.

During the last years, Additive Manufacturing has been extensively studied as a promising technology solution. It provides additional design freedom, with optimized shapes and materials, mass savings, by limiting the need of bulk materials, and extended opportunities to gather several pieces or functions within one single part. However, the impact of AM at system level needs to be carefully considered. Number of parts, RF performance, environmental conditions, position inside the system, thermal aspects, etc. need to be studied jointly. And additional level of improvement can be achieved when the whole systems of bigger subsystems are considered. The system impacts of the replacement of standard manufacturing processes by Additive Manufacturing will open some new horizons for system optimization, with opportunities of number of parts reduction, functions integration, development plan shortening. This talk will be focused on Satellite systems such as telecommunication payloads where the number of components is high with restrictions in terms of accommodation, thermal handling, etc.

There are many advantages in using 3D printing for microwave applications. One of these advantages is the potential weight reduction by using plated polymer materials, where not only the density of the material is much less then copper, but the filter can be shaped appropriately to reduce the mass of material making up the filter. This includes removing material where there are current nulls in the resonator structure. A second advantage is the potential size reduction. Because 3D printing can produce complex shapes as easily as simple ones, new types of resonator and/or smaller resonators such as coaxial structures can be easily used. A potential disadvantage of using polymer based printing is the susceptibly to increased temperature. However, there are many types of materials available, including ceramic based materials which can help overcome this problem. This paper will discuss all these concepts with examples of particular filters which demonstrate the issues.

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has the potential to change how future space products are designed, integrated and operated. This technology is considered already as a strategic technology approach for space applications. AM will enable design for performance, mass customisation and easy design changes possible while also massively reducing the design/manufacturing/assembly cycle/costs as well as providing an environmental friendly alternative to conventional machining and is considered as key enabling technology for miniaturisation of complex small systems. AM can suppose a breakthrough technology for the development of RF hardware. The use of this manufacturing process can allows the manufactures of RF hardware to enhance the performance. RF, thermal and mechanical performance can be improved by using the additional freedom provided by AM. The assessment of different AM approaches has already started and will consider the whole process chain, including design, material supply, processing, post processing, qualification and verification, and standardisation. This assessment exercise is helping to identify already those AM approaches (materials, designs, processing, etc.) suitable for the manufacturing of RF hardware. However, the goal of AM is not to replace well known and consolidated manufacturing approaches such as milling, but exploits the additional freedom for advance designs. Simulation-based methods for engineering design and analysis have been in used and development for over 40 years and they have fundamentally changed the way products are designed. AM will push further the development of simulations tools able to exploit the advantages of AM.

This talk will present different achievements and potentialities of additively manufactured 3D passive components. Covering different frequency bands from C to Ka band, examples of components made in plastic, metal and ceramic will be given. This presentation will show original ways to use additive manufacturing for compact filters, low loss filters using super low loss ceramics, tunable filters as well as mode converters and antennas.

In the talk, we go through typical examples of 3D printed mmWave and THz devices. They can be generally categorized as non-metallic and metallic ones. As the frequency goes higher up to the mmWave and THz spectrum, we are facing limits of the application of 3D printing technology to fabricate mmWave and THz devices in aspects of materials and techniques. We conduct a series of experiments to use metallic 3D printing technology to fabricate devices up to the H-band. Comparing the performance of 3D printed with commercial devices, we explore the limit of the 3D printing technology to fabricate mmWave and THz devices. We believe that with the development of the technique and related material science, the 3D printing technology will demonstrate its great potential for mmWave and THz device fabrications.

This presentation will highlight several research projects being carried out by Prof. Hao Xin’s group in the area of 3D printed components and potential systems for GHz to THz operation. Two printing techniques, polymer jetting based on photosensitive polymer and fused deposition modeling using thermal plastics will be discussed. A number of demonstrated examples including electromagnetic crystals, waveguides, antennas, phased array, gradient index lenses and holographic devices will be presented. Interesting applications of these 3D printed structures such as a new type of lens array for electronic beam scanning will also be described. Some of the important future research directions and challenges including potential novel designs enabled by 3D printing technology, development of additive manufacturing compatible materials with desired electromagnetic properties, and simultaneous printing of high quality conductor with other non-conductor materials will be discussed as well.

In recent years, additive manufacturing has seen a rapid growth due to its inherent capabilities in creating arbitrary structures and the associated reduction in cost per part. The authors recently demonstrated low-cost high performance 3-D printed metal-pipe rectangular waveguide (MPRWG) structures at X-Band and W-Band. In parallel, they have also demonstrated optically-controlled variable attenuators and switches within the WR-2.2 waveguide band, from 0.325 to 0.5 THz, using expensive bulk micromachining of silicon. This paper brings both concepts together in the form of realizing low-cost hybrid components and circuits; whereby miniature high-resistivity silicon implants are assembled into 3-D printed split-block MPRWGs having integrated infrared laser diode packaging mounts. We first experimentally demonstrate 3-D printed MPRWGs and associated power couplers, and also complete optically-controlled variable attenuators in WR-2.2. Then individual components are brought together to create the first 3-D printed optically-controlled THz IQ vector modulator. A typical application for this new hybrid THz technology will be in the realization of low-cost transmitters. To this end, the measured performance of a 16-QAM digital modulator operating at 0.4 THz will be reported

In this talk, a summary of works in creating truly three-dimensional structures for high-frequency applications will be presented using an additive manufacturing method, laser-based layer-by-layer polymer stereolithography. This polymer stereolithography is shown to have very good fabrication tolerances, which are necessary for making miniature RF components and narrow-band filters. The prototype components using this stereolithography include high-Q resonators, low-loss cavity filters and evanescent-mode filters, antennas and miniature ion traps for mass spectrometry.

Direct digital manufacturing (DDM) is a technique that combines fused deposition modeling of thermoplastics with micro-dispensing of (conducting, insulating, resistive) pastes. This presentation will describe recent applications of DDM for the fabrication of 3D structural microwave electronics. Specific topics covered will include the manufacturing process, development of microwave materials that are compatible with DDM, the electrical and mechanical characterization of printed structures and applications to circuits, interconnect and antennas from L-band thru W-band.

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has the potential to change how future space products are designed, integrated and operated. This technology is considered already as a strategic technology approach for space applications. AM will enable design for performance, mass customisation and easy design changes possible while also massively reducing the design/manufacturing/assembly cycle/costs as well as providing an environmental friendly alternative to conventional machining and is considered as key enabling technology for miniaturisation of complex small systems. AM can suppose a breakthrough technology for the development of RF hardware. The use of this manufacturing process can allows the manufactures of RF hardware to enhance the performance. RF, thermal and mechanical performance can be improved by using the additional freedom provided by AM. The assessment of different AM approaches has already started and will consider the whole process chain, including design, material supply, processing, post processing, qualification and verification, and standardisation. This assessment exercise is helping to identify already those AM approaches (materials, designs, processing, etc.) suitable for the manufacturing of RF hardware. However, the goal of AM is not to replace well known and consolidated manufacturing approaches such as milling, but exploits the additional freedom for advance designs. Simulation-based methods for engineering design and analysis have been in used and development for over 40 years and they have fundamentally changed the way products are designed. AM will push further the development of simulations tools able to exploit the advantages of AM.

Future development of wireless communications networks will require radical improvements over the existing system and radio-interface solutions to support many more users, massive sensor deployments and substantially improved spectral efficiency and coverage. To deliver these promises new frequency bands, advanced MIMO, carrier aggregation, mm-wave radios and large phased-array transceivers are being explored. This talk will focus on access methods, discuss implementation issues and provide examples from ongoing work.

There are three major thrusts in 5G radios: IoT, higher throughput, reduced latency. This talk will focus on the PA and 5G system challenges that are becoming apparent via the 3GPP standards efforts. There are two general frequency categories for these radios: sub 6GHz and millimeter wave (mmW). When we examine the sub6GHz configurations with higher throughput (TPUT), the goal is to provide better throughput beyond what 4G LTE can provide, both in the uplink and downlink. This additional TPUT will be achieved through wider modulation bandwidth, higher modulation complexity, and multiple data streams (layers). The result of this is a higher peak-to-average ratio and lower EVM specification for the PA (~1%). When we examine the mmW radios, we are faced with another set of issues: wider modulation bandwidth, 500MHz – 1GHz; compromised link budgets due to Tx power levels and propagation channel issues; multiple chains with multiple antennas in a phased array configuration. Other challenges in mmW UE 5G systems will be discussed.

The introduction of GaN technology for RF power applications have fueled the development of supply modulated systems and enabled their transition from low power front-ends to a viable alternative for base-station applications. Discrete level (class-G) systems now show powers in the 60W range with modulation bandwidths above 50 MHz. Advanced models have also been presented that can manage the linearization of the discontinuities generated in such systems. Further advances in switching frequency enabling much larger bandwidth in the 200-500 MHz range can be expected as the GaN technology is further developed and power requirements for the novel 5G systems are relaxed. Discrete Class-G or purely digital class-S envelope amplifiers are viable option for integrated extreme bandwidth ET systems for 5G which will be discussed in this work. Furthermore, alternative reverse topologies also enabling larger modulation BW systems will also be mentioned as well as the latest development of load-modulation, to be used alone or in combination with supply modulation.

Dynamic supply modulation (SM) can improve the efficiency of power amplifiers (PAs) for high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) signals. This talk will discuss several aspects of MMIC X-band PAs with dynamic supplies, including: integration, control, linearization and modeling. For increasing signal bandwidths (>250MHz), with PAPR>10dB, continuous efficient envelope modulators are not feasible, and other types of approaches including discrete-level reduced slew rate tracking are discussed. Measurement results for efficient X-band GaN MMIC PAs (>60% at >10W), various MMIC supply modulators (>95%) and integrated PA-SM MMICs will be presented for signals below 100MHz bandwidth, and compared with drive-modulated PAs in terms of efficiency and complexity. Simulations for very high-bandwidth signals and approaches to their efficient amplification based on existing hardware will be discussed, along with current practical limitations.

This talk will address the challenges of characterizing future 5G communication systems. The new 5G systems will extend the operating frequency up into the mm-wave region, as well as increase the modulation bandwidth into the GHz range. Furthermore, the transmitters for mm-wave frequencies will be more densely packed, and we foresee that no coaxial interface will be available. Solutions to these challenges will be presented, e.g. wideband vector corrected measurement system for mm-wave frequencies, massive MIMO test bed, as well as over the air characterization test bed.

The proposed talk starts by revising the conventional transmitter modeling strategies used for base-station efficiency and linearity optimization and the challenges posed by the new 5G MIMO systems. A particular attention will be given to the traditional – almost limitless, but slow and power hungry – digital-predistortion driven transmitter behavioral modeling and its limitations in the new context of higher modulation bandwidth, smaller output power per RF amplifier and dynamic load modulation imposed by the mutual coupling of a MIMO antenna-array. To cope with this new thought-provoking scenario, different transmitter modelling strategies and their future use for the simultaneous optimization of 5G transmitter systems’ linearity and efficiency will be presented and discussed.

5G transmitters will include large numbers of power amplifier PAs, which will need to feed a large number of antenna elements, each of which will transmit ultra-wideband at relatively low power and high frequencies. This emphasizes the importance of operating the individual PAs in an efficient region while mitigating intrinsic sources of distortion using advanced PA linearization techniques. Baseband digital predistortion (DPD) has become the approach of choice for linearizing 4G transmitters and is being considered for mm-wave transmitters. Unfortunately the simple application of DPD technique to investigating linear and efficient microwave and mm-wave massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) and beamforming transmitters, essential to 5G infrastructure M4BTx, is infeasible. This talk will examine the major challenges to the application of DPD technique to linearizing 5G PAs such as untenable power consumption and take up too much chip area, number of DPD circuits (including DPD engine and observation paths) versus the number of antennas, especially as the number of antenna elements increases and the signal bandwidth widens (= hundreds of MHz), and incompatibility with hybrid MIMO-beamforming transmitter architecture. It will also introduce potential approaches to mobilize the diverse strengths of analog, RF, and digital-baseband processing to devise digitally-assisted analog/RF predistortion circuitry with optimal linearization capacity and power overhead compatible with hybrid MIMO-beamforming 5G transmitters.

The next generation of microwave systems for the Internet of Things (IoT) demands a technology that guarantees easy integration of complex wireless nodes, combination of multiple functions in a single device, low development cost, compact size and low weight. Among the available technologies for the implementation and integration of microwave components and systems, the substrate integration waveguide (SIW) technology looks a very suitable approach, able to satisfy the requirements of the future IoT systems. Different solutions can be adopted to reduce the size and increase the bandwidth of SIW structures, ranging slab and ridge SIW interconnects to half-mode and quarter-mode configurations. These solutions provide a substantial reduction in the circuit size, while retaining the major advantages of SIW technology. Moreover, the choice of the substrate material represents another key point for IoT systems: in fact, depending on the specific application, different requirements are posed. Innovative circuits for IoT can be based on the use of paper for the implementation of eco-friendly systems, of textile for wearable systems, and of additive manufacturing techniques for the low-cost and ease manufacturing of fully 3D structures. This presentation will cover the perspectives of microwave systems in the new scenario of the IoT, with particular emphasis on implementation of SIW components and antennas with different features and substrate materials.

This talk will present the latest developments on microwave reconfigurable and miniaturized substrate integrated waveguide components at TAMU describing their tuning and/or miniaturization methodologies and performance at microwave frequencies.

Next-generation of transmission lines and passive components (interconnects, filters and antennas) for future and emerging mm-wave applications, due to their inherent high-frequency operation, will need of compact, easy-integration and low-loss solutions. Recently, the Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) technology has become a revolutionary hybrid concept (combining planar and waveguide technologies) for dealing with RF and microwave circuits and applications. A step forward in the frequency range should involve novel transmission lines with a substantial reduction in terms of propagation losses, while keeping simple manufacturing processes and easy-integration with other multiple technologies. For this purpose, an emerging set of technologies based on the concept of empty (i.e. without dielectric susbtrate) SIW have been recently proposed, such as the H-plane and E-plane ESIW configurations and the Empty Substrate Integrated Coaxial Line (ESICL), which will be covered in this talk. After presenting these novel technologies, their practical applications for the realization of transmission lines and many different passive components (i.e. transitions, filters, diplexers, dividers and couplers) and antennas will be also shown.

Introduced in the early 2000s, the substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology, has trigged a huge interest from academia to industry with the focus on the design and development of low-loss, compact, integrated, self-packaged and low-cost microwave and millimeter-wave circuits, antennas and systems. However, the classical metallic waveguide technology, which offers better performances such as lower insertion loss and higher power handling, has still been used in the design of microwave and millimeter-wave systems, despite its higher cost and bulky structure. To offer a highly integrated, further loss-reduced, low-cost alternative to the conventional waveguide and also to allow a wide-spread use of the millimeter-wave spectrum, a new SIW structure called Air-Filled SIW (AFSIW) has been introduced. This new structure has been theoretically and experimentally studied in details with a substantial amount of results. At millimeter wave frequencies, compared to the SIW topologies, the proposed AFSIW scheme exhibits a substantially lower insertion loss (three times at Ka-band, for example) and a much higher average power handling capability (four times, at Ka-band for example). Numerous AFSIW passive components have been investigated designed and demonstrated, which take advantages of the well-established multilayer printed circuit board (PCB) fabrication process. Couplers, phase shifters, power dividers, antennas and filters have been modeled, designed, prototyped and measured based on the introduced technology. Their performances have theoretically and experimentally been compared with their SIW counterparts to demonstrate and validate the benefits of the proposed technology.

The properties of transmission line, such as losses, size, etc., play vital roles for performance of the circuits and systems. Suspended line has been proved as an excellent transmission line, featured with low loss, weak dispersion, high power capacity etc. However, Conventional suspended line circuits require metal housing to form air cavities, which provides mechanical support and shielding while leads to large size and heavy weight. Moreover, precise mechanic fabrication and assembling contribute to more manufacturing cost. In this talk, we will introduce a new transmission line, i.e. substrate integrated suspended line (SISL), which forms a new platform for high performance cost effective circuits. The proposed SISL keeps all the performance merits of the suspended line while overcomes its drawbacks. Moreover, it also has advantages for high density integration and self-packaged for both passive and active circuits. The basic theory, circuit design and implementation will be presented in this talk.

The development of Nuvotronics’ exclusive PolyStrata air-dielectric transmission line system began more than 10 years ago under a DARPA contract known as 3D-MERFS. The company Nuvotronics was spun out of Rohm and Haas in 2008 on a mission to advance this technology in applications demanding superior performance combined with small size, light weight and reduced power dissipation, at microwave and millimeter-wave frequencies. This talk will review the history of the technology, show how it is manufactured, provide comparisons between PolyStrata coax and other interconnect systems, and describe applications of its use in power combining, antennas, filters and multiplexers, time delay and other products. Steve promises to hold the marketing jive to a minimum and focus on data you can use to decide if PolyStrata coax is right for your application.

Thanks to Moore's law, CMOS circuits operating above 100 GHz become possible. At these high frequencies, plenty of bandwidth is available enabling high-data rate applications. Furthermore, at these high frequencies, thin (mm-range) polymer (PE,PP, PS, PTFE,...) fibers are excellent transmission media and exhibit fairly low loss, below 5 dB/m. As such, the combination of CMOS mm-wave transceivers, on-chip or on-board antennas and thin plastic fibers leads to an innovative communication concept that is, in certain applications, far better than optical communication or copper wireline communication. Especially for cases where high EMI resilience, high mechanical tolerance and low cost are important, such as automotive communication, this 'RF over Plastics' concept is a game-changing technology. This presentation will discuss some of the key benefits and drawbacks of polymer microwave fiber technology and will present the results of the ongoing research at KU Leuven on this topic since 2012.

This presentation will review the physical and engineering fundamentals of substrate integration techniques in connection with the state-of-the-art planar transmission line synthesis and development. In particular, the technique of mode diversity within the same substrate development platform will be explained and discussed with a number of examples. In addition, an emerging concept of mode selectivity will be exposed and detailed with its physical mechanism for low-loss and low-dispersion super-wideband and ultra-fast signal transmissions over the DC-THz spectrum. Theoretical and experimental results will be presented in an effort to explore both structural integration and physical agility of integrated transmission lines through the two approaches, namely mode-diversity and mode-selectivity.

Historically, most civil legacy GPS applications have been based on the in the GPS L1 band, centered at 1575.42 MHz. With the development of new GNSS signals and systems throughout the Globe by various nations, new GNSS antennas need to be designed and integrated into devices to take advantage of these new GNSS signals. Presentation on GNSS signals will include GPS (Legacy Modernized); the Russian GLObal Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), the European Galileo, the Chinese BeiDou, the Japanese Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS). This presentation will focus on the use of these new GNSS signals for various applications and the GNSS antenna to support these multi-frequency, multi-GNSS systems.

This presentation presents our study on a circular polarised (CP) antenna for low Size, Weight And Power (SWAP) Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers, covering L1/E1, L2, L5/E5 and E6 bands. The small quad band CP antenna was designed based on stacked patches and an innovative single feed and loading technique. The antenna was verified in experiment and proved to meet the required specification.

For GNSS and BGAN services in mobile applications, reception systems and its antennas have to fulfil multiple and time variant requirements demanding for special radiation characteristics and axial ratio in combination with gain-to-noise-temperature (G/T), efficiency, easy manufacturing properties, mechanical stability, reproducible behaviour in different environmental conditions and more. Also, wideband and multiband capabilities are useful to cover as many services as possible by single antenna parts. In this contribution ring-antenna concepts are discussed to fulfil these requirements and results of simulations as well as measured characteristics of functional demonstrators are shown. In addition, resluts of a a new multi-antenna reception system with beam steering for BGAN are shown.

This presentation reviews GNSS antennas and arrays for robust coverage in presence of interference signals with a focus on antenna design aspects. A number of small antenna designs are presented that cover multiple current and future GNSS frequency bands (1150 MHz to 1610 MHz) with sizes as small as 1” (25 mm) in diameter. Several arrays are presented with a size as small as 3.5” in diameter and approximately 0.5” (13 mm) thick as compared to commercially available apertures14” (35.6 cm) and 5.5” (14.0 cm) in diameter. These small arrays are shown to satisfy the gain requirements of GNSS receivers while simultaneously offering 4 to 6 antenna elements for adaptive interference suppression.

Antenna arrays for BGAN applications have been developed like the quadrifilar helical element. The proposed antenna should have circular polarization, small size, light weight, low cost, large bandwidth, almost hemispherical radiation pattern and excellent circular polarization. Detailed of the antenna performance and integrated feed will be discussed and compared to state of the art designs.

There is a critical need for the development of new navigation technologies that can provide accurate and uninterrupted position, navigation and timing information in crowded and contested electromagnetic environments, particularly for personnel such as first responders and the dismounted soldier. An essential element in a navigation system is the GPS receiver antenna, which must be designed to maintain a constant link with visible GPS satellites while providing robust protection against hostile jamming signals. One solution for providing anti-jam capability to a GPS receiver is to include a controlled reception pattern array (CRPA), which employs spatial filtering of the received RF signals by steering the nulls of the reception pattern of the antenna array toward the direction(s) of jamming signals. For handheld and/or wearable GPS receivers, the size, weight, power and cost of such a CRPA must be minimized and it must be seamlessly integrated with the platform of interest (compact handheld device, clothing, helmet etc.) without sacrificing performance. This paper will discuss the system constraints that must be considered when designing a man-portable GPS CRPA and will present a path forward for a viable handheld and/or wearable anti-jam GPS antenna.

The current demand for higher data rates and the increasing number of users places strict constraints on the currently over taxed frequency spectrum. Recently, much research interest has been focused on promising areas such as cognitive radio for optimum spectrum resource allocation as well as same frequency full duplex communication potentially doubling bandwidth. A key enabling technology of such future receivers is the N-path filter technique which has shown promise as a fully integrated tunable filter, and recently, as an integrated full duplex circulator. This talk will review recent developments of the N-path filter technique in terms of its application in a reconfigurable receiver, multi-band reconfigurable receivers for carrier aggregation, and high power sustainable N-path path filters and circulators using GaN technology. Recent results of GaN N-path filters will be discussed showing the highest reported power handling of +27 dBm far beyond traditional CMOS N-path filters. Lastly, the path toward future work for high power sustainable N-path filters in terms of potential design of a CMOS clock driver and GaN N-path filter hybrid will be discussed.

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) has come into the new period that characterized by the plenty of satellite resources, and the inter-operation among different systems. To achieve a faster, more reliable and more precise positioning, GNSS receivers integrate multiple channels, wider bandwidth, and different working modes. This talk focuses on the low power techniques on multi-mode dual-system GNSS receiver design, including the single-LO flexible frequency plan, the single/double conversion topology, and scalable building blocks optimization. Finally, 4 different receiver implementations with their measurement results are discussed to verify the low power design techniques.

This topic presents the Australian Optus MobileSat smart antennas developed for vehicular applications. The antenna configurations are a planar switched beam and a phased array antennas. The antenna comprises a broadband circularly polarized L-band patch antenna followed by a beamforming network, a digital phase shifter bank, and a radial switch. A switching electronics controls the beamforming network to generate full 3D scanning of the agile beam when the antenna is on the move. This topic details the development of individual components and the integrated smart antenna for the Australian Optus Mobilesat.

Utilizing L-Band satellite communications networks, including GEO, LEO, and MEO orbits, to deliver high bandwidth terminals, as well as low bandwidth IoT terminals across the planet. New RF technology and research are continually innovating terminal design. Also, real world applications including NASA's research and testing for Mars, research balloons, maritime security, and how RF technology saves lives and changes lives in the palm of your hand anywhere on the planet. Learn about both the current and future network capabilities, and upcoming RF technology that is powering smaller and higher bandwidth terminals.

Lowering the cost of space technology can be very different form lowering the cost of technology in commercial markets. Since space applications also require high reliability the costs extend beyond just the component purchase prices. The costs associated with quality control must also be considered. In addition to lowering the cost of satellite technology, getting the satellite into the proper orbit is also a substantial portion of the total cost. New launch vehicle technology and approaches are needed to fully address the total cost since a low cost satellite with a high cost launch is not a low cost solution. Aspects of cost in the space industry with some historical and forward looking perspectives will be presented. Discussion will include both the satellites and launch vehicles.

In this talk software defined radio and active arrays designs will be presented as an alternative to Space Communications, this will be complemented with some measurements of a real demonstrator.

Multibeam antennas constitute a key enabling element for satellite communication systems offering high gain and large field of view. In this area, satellite manufacturers daily face an increase in demand of satellite handled bandwidth, offered power, frequency reuse and traffic reconfigurability, and embarked antenna sizes, all with a major request in cost reduction. Depending mainly on the operational frequency, pattern requirements, transmitting and/or receiving functionality, different architectures may be selected: from antenna systems completely based on independent feeds illuminating a number of reflectors to hybrid systems based on both arrays and reflectors, from phased arrays to lens antennas. In the last ten years innovative configurations have been proposed exploiting new frequencies, materials, polarization properties and reconfiguration capabilities. The talk will provide an overview on recent developments in the field of Multibeam Antennas and Beamforming Networks with special emphasis to satellite applications and cost reduction.

Space market is looking for cheaper, realiable and environment friendly technologies. One of possible ways, and very effective, of cost minimization is total mass reduction of satelites and launchers. Second possible way is to use non space qualified components, so called COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf). Usage of COTS Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) for some space application can bring here a large profit, becouse of mass reduction (cables are eleminated) and low price. The importance of WSN for space missions is shown in multiple applications, such as assembly, equipment integration and as a platform for collecting data of different quantities during operating. Moreover, the high number of sensors required in space applications underscores the need for wireless sensors that save time during integration due to their simpler links and connections. Here we propose a new concept of building WSN topology and routing scheme. The concept uses multiple (X) spanning trees having disjoint set of edges – connections between WSN nodes. The spanning trees are found using proposed by us modified Kruskal’s algorithm. All X spanning trees are prioritized. Each node has X neighbors where it can send the data. Node always sends the data to its neighbor with the highest priority index. In case this node is not accessible (broken) the data is sent to the node with the priority one level lower. Proposed topology is very reliable and allows for sending very high amount of data comparing to, e.g., ZigBee protocol, what numerical simulations and experiments with physical network have proven. Proposed by us network topology and routing scheme make the network very realiable and very fast switching in case of nodes failure. The performance was verified by multiple experiments, numerical and practical. The WSN consisting of 30 nodes was tested onboard a research rocket in flight. The nodes collected measurements of different quantities like accelerations, temperature etc.

Global observations of clouds and precipitation are essential to improve prediction of severe weather with substantial impacts on human life and property. For example, severe storms and tropical cyclones have caused more than 720 Billion USD of damage since 1980 in the U.S. alone. To understand processes in clouds that lead to rain, snow, sleet and hail, global observations with rapid revisit times are essential. To this end, sensors on geostationary satellites have greatly improved weather prediction by providing visible and infrared measurements on the 5- to 10-minute time scale. However, to improve understanding of cloud and ice processes leading to the onset of precipitation on a global basis necessitates the development and deployment of constellations of low-cost polar-orbiting satellites with millimeter-wave to THz systems. At the same time, in the past few years the satellite industry has experienced the maturation of disruptive technology, including standards and manufacturing processes to build and launch U-Class satellites, commonly called CubeSats. CubeSats feature rapid development cycles of about two years as well as opportunities for new technology adoption and low-cost launches as secondary payloads on missions of opportunity. In particular, 6U-Class satellites provide healthy margins on mass, power, satellite-to-ground communications and antenna aperture size to accommodate millimeter-wave to THz sensors and systems capable of observing clouds and precipitation on a global basis. A constellation of such 6U-Class satellites appropriately spaced in the same orbital plane can observe the time evolution of cloud processes leading to precipitation with revisit times on the order of 5 minutes. At present, a collaboration among CSU, JPL and BCT is producing the 6U-Class TEMPEST-D for in-space technology demonstration in anticipation of a future constellation entitled Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems (TEMPEST). TEMPEST-D is planned for delivery in July 2017 for a NASA-provided launch and deployment from the International Space Station in December 2017.

In this lecture circuit- and system-level architectures for tags will be presented with the aim of providing localization and powering of objects distributed in Space Stations. Next generation tags solution, adopting UWB backscattering for localization and UHF smart wireless powering for energy autonomy will be presented and discussed from both the circuit/antenna design and the system operations point of views. In particular the robustness of the approach with respect to harsh indoor environment will be discussed.

More than 40 years have passed since the first demonstration of a monolithically integrated microwave power amplifier and the advancements achieved through the growth of the MMIC technology have been tremendous. The advantage of increased functional capability, reduced volume and costs and improvement of reliability has been taken in many new applications and in many cases it allowed us to benefit of the inherent properties of newly unveiled portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Unlike the ground systems that are naturally protected by the Earth´s atmosphere, space components in satellite communication systems or remote sensing satellites need to demonstrate reliability to operate in extremely harsh environment. The latter fact often determines the choice of the technology and hence the costs. The evolution of the MMIC technology for space will be covered in this workshop, highlighting the main technology milestones, current trends and design considerations. Specific space environment conditions and qualification procedures will be presented as well. GaN technology, which has been identified a key enabling technology for space will be covered in detail, accompanied by different MMIC examples from real missions and selected ESA programs.

As mentioned in the WS abstract, “the development of ICT (…) is calling for a massive satellite deployment that, in turn, calls for a dramatic reduction in the cost of satellite technology and manufacturing. This present trend has the natural consequence of implying a progressive “downgrading” of the technologies involved in satellite realization”. This technological downgrading forced by the demand for cost reduction involved in the mass production of satellites and space apparatuses, is nowadays made acceptable by the emerging of new distributed approaches strongly related to the IoT development and is paving the way to new opportunities and scenarios. In fact, on the one hand, the massive deployment of small inexpensive LEO satellite of very limited life-time is decreasing the well known emphasis the space technology providers have had so far on reliability, radiation hardness, system robustness and so forth. On the other hand, the massive deployment of a new generation of cube, low cost satellites, likely destined to disintegrate in the atmosphere still rises new challenges, never experienced before in this area, such as, for instance, the echo-friendliness of the space apparatuses that must not release toxic chemicals after burning in the atmosphere. In this talk we will show how the recent development of terrestrial electronic technologies, mainly driven by the IoT requirements, can be extended successfully to the realization of RF and microwave satellite systems and sub-systems. Echo-friendly realization of some key RF sub-systems and examples of reference systems of interest for microwave cube satellite, remote sensing and telecommunication applications will be shown.

The use of low cost satellites for signal transmission necessitates in the design and application of reception systems which can operate even at very low signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). The SNR at the receiver is dominated by noise and interference originating from terrestrial wireless transmitters as well as other terrestrial sources in combination with adverse propagation effects like multipath fading e.g. underneath dense foliage or in street canyons. With respect to satellite radio systems like for example SDARS and services with lower signal power it was shown that antenna diversity systems allow for the improvement of reception quality even in critical scenarios to such an extent that a significant reduction of satellite transmission power is feasible. In this presentation key properties of wave propagation in critical scenarios are highlighted and discussed especially with regard to applicable diversity techniques. Utilizing novel antenna diversity systems it can be shown that a stable reception can be achieved even in scenarios where the SNR shows negative dB-values. The performance of such systems for improvement of reception quality in critical mobile reception scenarios is verified by way of simulations, measurements and field tests.

Microwave and power switching devices based on GaN technology are increasingly attractive for space borne communication and power conditioning systems. These features are consequences of particular physical properties of GaN in combination with suitable heterostructure materials such as AlGaN, InAlN or AlN. They enable very compact devices with inherently high current density and comparably high breakdown voltage level. For microwave power devices these properties translate to operating at much high breakdown voltage levels and fast switching devices. At system level this advantage translates to low volume and light weighted power conversion systems. The presentation will provide an overview on GaN power switching device technologies will discuss possible technical challenges and issues and will show future development trends.

In this opening talk, the basic fundamentals underlying the MIMO concept are explained. It will be shown how multiple reflections in indoor and urban environments can be effectively used to create additional independent channels that can serve the purposes of diversity and/or spatial multiplex-ing. Extending this concept for a base station to serve multiple users gives rise to Multiuser MIMO, in which both the number of served users and that of the array elements are very moderate. Massive MIMO on the other hand uses large antenna arrays to produce very narrow multiple beams that are capable of simultaneously establishing independent channels between the base station and a number of mobile or stationary users. The usually used deterministic and stochastic models for representing mobile wireless channels (linear time-varying systems) will be explained emphasizing the massive-MIMO aspects. Sample massive-MIMO systems that have been recently developed will be presented and discussed.

In 5G systems small cells are used to provide ultra-high data rates to multiple users. Applications can be e.g. theatres or football stadiums. In our contribution, we focus on the indoor scenario with limited mobility, where low-cost low-complexity miniature consumer electronic devices like tablets and smart phones are deployed. In the context of ultra-high data rates for wireless communications, ultra-wideband technology is a promising candidate to achieve the target data rate. When considering only the frequency range from 6-8.5 GHz, where the spectral mask defined for EU countries has a 25 dB peak, a spectral efficiency of e.g. 40 bps/Hz would enable 100 Gbps. Also, in this frequency range we benefit from a rich multipath channel that enables the use of MIMO technology. In our interdisciplinary (microwave engineering/baseband processing) approach we combine our expertise in the following areas: System architectures enabling extremely high throughput, realization of paradigms for complexity reduction and energy saving of gigabit wireless systems, algorithms for baseband processing in ultra-wideband systems, and investigation of performance parameters of high speed wireless systems. The key concept is based on a multi-mode antenna design in conjunction with advanced baseband processing, dubbed multi-mode massive MIMO. This concept is suitable for miniature devices, as well as for base station arrays. For the access point a compact massive multi antenna system having 11x11x4=484 antenna ports is implemented and characterized. Due to the use of 4 orthogonal modes on each physical element we achieve a 54% reduction of the array size compared to conventional concepts. Its performance is proven by measurements of a prototype array. Furthermore, system level simulations show that the Massive Multi-Mode approach outperforms conventional concept of comparable size and complexity.

In this presentation, we discuss our recent works on precoding techniques for massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. After introducing conjugate beamforming (BF) and regular-ized zero-forcing (RZF) precoding as most widely-used conventional linear precoding schemes also serving as benchmark schemes here, we propose the linear multi-cell aware RZF (MCA-RZF) pre-coder. The MCA-RZF precoder is aware of multi-cell interference and channel state information (CSI) imperfections and, hence, achieves substantially higher sum rates than the conventional RZF precoder. Next, we extend the considered system model to a more advanced one, where hard-ware impairments (HWIs) are present at both base stations (BSs) and user terminals (UTs), and propose a multi-cell and HWI aware RZF (MCHA-RZF) precoder. Our simulation results show that the proposed MCHA-RZF precoder achieves a considerably higher performance than the multi-cell aware but HWI unaware (MCAHU-RZF) and RZF precoders. In the next part of the presentation, we discuss a new a class of polynomial-expansion precoders, where the matrix inverse in the MCHA-RZF precoding matrix is approximated by a matrix polynomi-al to reduce the computational complexity. The optimal polynomial coefficients are obtained by applying techniques from random matrix theory and depend only on CSI statistics which vary slowly over time. The simulation results show that the proposed polynomial-expansion MCHA-RZF (PMCHA-RZF) precoder achieves, even with a few terms in the matrix polynomial, much higher sum rates than the RZF precoder while having lower complexity than the MCHA-RZF precoder. In the final part of this talk, we present our recent work on a new family of precoders which we call hybrid linear/Tomlinson-Harashima precoders (HL-THPs). The proposed HL-THPs comprise a linear inner precoder and a nonlinear THP precoder. The linear inner precoders are based solely on the channel second order statistics, and the outer THPs exploit the instantaneous overall CSI of the cascade of the actual channel and the inner precoder. The UTs are divided into groups with similar second-order CSI statistics. In each group, the intra-group interference is successively mitigated by THPs, whereas the inter-group interference is suppressed by linear precoders. Our analytical and simulation results show that the proposed HL-THP achieves a substantially higher average rate per UT and a considerably lower bit error rate (BER) than the linear RZF precoder. Moreover, both the average achievable rate per UT and the BER of the proposed HL-THP are close to those of the con-ventional THP. In addition, we analyze the computational complexity of the proposed HL-THP in terms of the required number of floating-point operations. These results reveal that the proposed HL-THP has a much lower computational complexity than the conventional THP and RZF precoders, respectively. This and its high performance render the HL-THP an excellent candidate for practical systems.

Massive MIMO will be an extremely important technology within the upcoming 5G systems, to meet demands on system throughput and energy efficiency. Lately, the research focus has been shifting from asymptotic performance analysis, pilot contamination etc., towards hardware aspects and performance analysis under more realistic conditions. A reason is that the large number of RF and digfital chains will require less expensive components leading to increased distortion, and there is a need to introduce transceiver simplifications of various kinds to enable rollout. In this semi-tutorial talk, we discuss various hardware issues, and their detrimental effects on a massive MIMO system.

Massive MIMO systems enable notable theoretical performance gains given that the channel ma-trix has been accurately determined. However, hardware impairments like mixer imbalance, carrier leakage, antenna position deviations or antenna coupling may significantly degrade the estimation results and they are subject to environmental changes like variations in temperature. Therefore, we propose low complexity enhancements to the single module's transceiver architecture as well as semi-passive backscatter transponders in known positions in front of the array. They enable auto-matic online error estimation and mitigation by the array itself without operator intervention using radar-like techniques with some modules transmitting while other modules receive the reflected transmissions. The prospects of this novel setup will be both discussed on the Massive MIMO sys-tem's level and evaluated from a single module's perspective. Measurement results are provided to demonstrate the capabilities of the novel calibration concept.

This talk does review and evaluate (theoretically / principles) how far novel recurrent/cellular (nonlinear) network architecture concepts may be adapted and optimized to contribute to an effective solving of modelling and (real-time) computational challenges faced by channel estimation under stochastic and time-varying propagation conditions even for MIMO wireless systems. After a review of most relevant related works, it is shown that novel CNN concepts involving paradigms such as « reservoir computing » and « echo-state neural networks » do offer an appropriate architectural platform for the complex online modeling task at stake. It is briefly discussed how far the quintessence of this novel suggested CNN architecture is inspired from the so-called « polynomial chaos » paradigm. Further, a series of design guidelines are formulated. Finally, a series of planned validation (and benchmarking) experiments is described, whereby the channel estimation problem is handled as a hard online system-identification problem under strong stochasticity, nonlinearity and time-varying conditions.

In virtual reality huge amount of data must be speedily exchanged between mobile individuals and stationary base stations. This includes low-power video, audio, sensing, tracking, and control signals that must be highly synchronized and attribute minimal latency. Short-distance, ultrahigh data-rate wireless channels are the best candidates to offer these requirements. Most attractive features attributed by massive MIMO for 5G, e.g. ultrahigh data rates, ultralow transmission power, and minimal latency, are applicable here. The favorable frequency bands for indoor virtual-reality applications may however deviate from those dedicated to 5G. Best candidates are the 60-GHz and the 140-GHz bands. Design, optimization, and manufacturing of large antenna arrays in these bands are rather challenging. It is the scope of this contribution to highlight these challenges and to offer suitable solutions for the related technical and technological problems. Treated problems include the proper choice of the array topology, trade-off between hardware phase shifters and digital beamforming, as well as the design of integrated feed networks including Butler matrices and Rotman lenses.

The advent of carrier aggregation has increased the requirements on filtering in LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) handsets. In this context, the development of lithographically-defined integrated filters is essential to replace off-chip components currently adopted in commercial platforms and to enable the implementation of miniaturized adaptive RF front-ends. In addition, the development of on-chip matching networks is highly desirable in order to maximize the power-transfer, from filters to antennas and vice versa, for any possible operative scenario. This talk will discuss a new class of monolithic integrated radio-frequency (RF) passive components based on the recently developed Aluminum Nitride (AlN) MEMS Cross-Sectional Lamé-mode Resonator (CLMR) technology. Differently from any resonator technology demonstrated to date, CLMRs rely on a coherent combination of the ¬e31 and e33 piezoelectric coefficients of AlN to transduce a 2-dimensional (2D) mechanical mode of vibration, which is characterized by longitudinal vibrations along both the width and the thickness of the AlN plate. This feature enables the implementation of AlN CLMRs with high values of electromechanical coupling coefficient, kt2>7%. In addition, due to dependence of such 2D mode on the lateral dimensions of the plate, CLMRs operating at significantly different frequencies can be lithographically defined on the same substrate without requiring additional fabrication steps. The capability of achieving high FOM (kt2?Q), comparable to the ones of commercially available AlN FBAR devices, and multiple operating frequencies on the same chip without additional fabrication costs (lithographic tunability of the resonance frequency), makes this technology one of the best candidate for the implementation of monolithic integrated contiguous and not-contiguous filters for platforms adopting carrier-aggregation (CA). Our group has recently exploited these unique features for the experimental demonstrations of several prototypes with groundbreaking performance: (1) CLMRs operating between 700 MHz and 1 GHz showing kt2 and FOM in excess of 6.2% and 145, respectively, which are the highest ever demonstrated in AlN resonators operating in the same frequency range; (2) CLMR ladder filters operating around 900 MHz, fabricated on the same silicon substrate and showing a fractional bandwidth (BW3dB) as high as 3.3% and an insertion loss as low as 0.4 dB; (3) a Cross-Sectional Lamé-Mode Transformer (CLMT), showing a record-high open-circuit voltage-gain in excess of 39, which is suitable for the implementation of low-loss narrow-band matching networks and voltage-amplification stages in miniaturized AC-to-DC and DC-to-DC converters.

To satisfy the ever-increasing demand for spectrum, commercial markets desire integrated multi-frequency “band”-select duplexer and diplexer filters, with fractional bandwidth (BW) ranging from 3% to 10% and steep roll-off for high stop band rejection. The achievable bandwidth of such filters is ultimately limited by the electro-mechanical coupling factor (kt2) of the resonators, while the roll-off is determined by resonator quality factor (Q). Therefore, resonators with both high kt2 and high Q are desired for large BW, steep roll off band-pass filters. This paper presents the fabrication technology and design of thin-film lithium niobate (LN) contour-mode resonators (CMR). By carefully positioning the inter-digital transducer (IDT), we achieved CMRs with kt2×Q of 148 (IDT @ node) or resonators with very high kt2 of 24% and spur-attenuated response (IDT @ anti-node). In addition, we demonstrated resonators with frequencies ranging from 400MHz to 1.9GHz on a single chip. I will conclude my talk by providing a glimpse of how we are leveraging our mastery of micromachining lithium niobate to “etch-a-sketch” RF filters, optical frequency combs and microwave photonics.

Recently, Lithium Niobate (LN) laterally vibrating resonators have emerged as a promising alternative acoustic technology for future front-ends. Based on transferred LN thin films of single crystal quality on carrier substrates, this technology platform has been demonstrated with high Q and high electromechanical coupling simultaneously for various lateral acoustic modes. In addition, multiple center frequencies have also been monolithically demonstrated on the same chip. Given an intimate integration with switching components, LN LVRs can be envisioned to support carrier aggregation or reconfigurable filtering. In this talk, the most recent development of LN LVRs will be first presented and followed by the discussions of overcoming the remaining technology bottlenecks in its path to commercialization.

Piezoelectric MEMS have experienced tremendous commercial success via RF filters based on aluminum nitride (AlN). Its CMOS compatibility, high temperature capability, low dielectric leakage, high quality factor, low permittivity, and reliable fabrication process have made AlN a common piezoelectric material choice in an expanding number of applications such as microphones, accelerometers, contour mode resonators, near zero power wakeup devices, etc. Even though there is a growing AlN device portfolio, the piezoelectric response and coupling coefficient of AlN is relatively low. Researchers have been investigating ways of increasing piezoelectric coefficients by alloying AlN with materials such as scandium (Sc) or substituting a material such as lithium niobate (LiNbO3). Sandia National Laboratories is currently investigating ScAlN and LiNbO3 as potential material enhancements over AlN for RF resonators and other applications. This talk will discuss the performance of the aforementioned material sets as well as the integration and volume manufacturing challenges in next-generation miniature and integrated high-quality-factor resonators.

Because of their excellent performances such as low insertion loss, sharp cut-off, good temperature stability, small size, etc., radio frequency (RF) devices employing the surface and bulk acoustic wave (SAW/BAW) technologies are widely used in the frontend section of modern telecommunication systems. Still, further improvement of device performances is strongly demanded to fulfil more stringent specifications for the use in future high speed communication standards. Achievable performances of these devices are inherently limited by materials where acoustic waves propagate. Even though raw materials are unchanged, use of new processing techniques may make it possible to realize tricky structures which were not applicable to mass production. Thus engineers are always looking for new exotic materials and processing techniques which may enhance performances and/or extend applicability of RF SAW/BAW devices. This talk is aimed at overviewing recent progress of materials and processing techniques for RF SAW/BAW devices.

Akoustis is engaged in the development, design, and manufacture of innovative RF filter products. Bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonators are the building blocks of high selectivity filters, a critical component in wireless systems such as in mobile phones. Today’s RF filters utilize polycrystalline physical vapor-deposited materials to build thin-film bulk BAW resonators. The loss introduced by any filter results in a significant amount of the energy dissipated between the power amplifier and the antenna, resulting in heat generation and reduced battery life. To compensate for such losses, power amplifier specifications are increased, by as much as a factor of two, which further reduces the battery life and puts more demands on the thermal management of the mobile device. Increasing demand for wireless data and user applications is driving an increase in the number of wireless channels or frequency bands and therefore the number of filters. As the filter count per mobile device increases, these inefficiencies become more limiting, motivating the need for improved filter performance. Akoustis is developing a new class of RF filters utilizing single crystal, epitaxial, III-N piezoelectric material based BAW resonators. Such filters are expected to have advantages such as reduced loss, wider bandwidth and improved power handling capability as well as being capable of higher frequency operation. These advantages lend themselves to both commercial mobile phone applications as well as higher frequency and higher power applications such as wireless infrastructure small cell and 5GHz WiFi. This talk will introduce the technology and its status, progress, and some recent results.

Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) is a piezoelectric material with one of the largest in-plane piezoelectric stress constant, e31,f, with a value ranging from -12 to -18 C/m2. This large e31,f has been utilized to create low loss, large coupling micro electromechanical resonators at HF and VHF. While other piezoelectric materials offer qualities that are attractive for microelectromechanical resonators, such as high quality factor and easier integration and manufacturing with CMOS electronics (aluminum nitride) or higher coupling factors (lithium niobate), PZT offers the potential to integrate a variety of RF MEMS devices monolithically. For example, PZT RF switches have shown good performance up to 50 GHz, and PZT varactors have been demonstrated with capacitance ratios over 10, both of which rely on PZT’s large e31,f coefficient. While all of these devices are close to or exceed the state-of-the-art in performance, combining them together would enable further benefits. Monolithically integrating these devices would allow for flexible and reconfigurable RF components within a single process, not only eliminating excess packaging, but also reducing routing losses. As the RF spectrum becomes more crowded and dynamic, this flexibility and reconfigurability will be highly desirable. Some of the outstanding technical challenges for PZT-based MEMS resonators are: improving material quality factor, addressing temperature sensitivity, and mitigating spurious modes. Bulk PZT ceramics have been engineered to have material quality factors over 2000, however the quality factor of thin-film PZT remains quite low, often near 200. If the quality factor can be improved, even at the expense of coupling, PZT would be a more attractive material for thin-film resonators. Temperature sensitivity of resonators is often simply a frequency shift due to temperature, however PZT will also change its piezoelectric properties at high temperatures. Mitigating these effects will be important to realize PZT devices suitable for military and commercial use. Finally, spurious modes, which arise when utilizing high coupling materials, can prevent realization of wideband filters. Bulk acoustic resonators use the lateral geometries to mitigate spurious modes, however MEMS resonators utilize these lateral geometries to define the resonator, so new methods for spur suppression must be developed especially when using high coupling materials where significant energy is available in these unwanted modes of vibration.

The exponential increase in the number of wireless devices as well as the limited wireless spectrum, poses significant challenges in the design of future wireless communication systems. Adaptive and reconfigurable radios that can change their frequency and mode of operation based on the unused/available wireless spectrum as well as their surrounding environmental conditions have been proposed to address such challenges. However, currently available RF and microwave circuit components cannot meet the performance requirements, and cost constraints necessary for the commercialization of such systems. This presentation is on the applications of ferroelectric thin film barium strontium titanate (BST), a low loss, high dielectric constant field dependent multifunctional material. An important characteristic of BST is its DC electric field induced piezoelectric and electrostrictive effect. These property is utilized to design intrinsically switchable film bulk acoustic wave resonators (FBARs) and FBAR filters. Switchable ferroelectric based filter banks can significantly reduce size and power consumption of conventional filter banks employed in multi-standard and frequency agile radios. Properties and performance of a number of intrinsically switchable BST based FBARs will be discussed.

Electromagnetic simulations and optimizations have been established as essential tools in industrial design processes. In the future, there will be an increasing demand for optimization of systems across multiple physical domains in order to find best solutions in case of conflicting design goals. This presentation will introduce practical platform to address such demands, and will outline how it can be applied to drive this kind of multi domain design and optimization tasks.

Microwave circuits, especially power transistors, are essential components of mobile communication/computing as they amplify signals to be transmitted wirelessly from the base-station to subscriber terminals. Their compact design is increasingly difficult, as mobile network operators require operation at higher output power and frequency while simultaneously demanding a reduction in the circuit size. Shrinking the device and increasing frequency results in significant internal electromagnetic coupling, which is detrimental to device performance, and increased power results in higher power dissipation that increases the temperature and optimized operations of the system. These requirements conflict with one another, where the device physics, electromagnetic fields and distributed temperatures co-couple to limit the overall performance. This presentation will summarize research activities underway to develop new simulation and measurement methodologies to understand the surprising effects that can result.

Multiphysics applications provide a variety of challenges for computer simulation. The most obvious challenge is the breath of physics involved, from electrical and electronics simulation to thermal, fluids and mechanical simulation. Beyond this, there is the need for the different simulations to interact, to have the results from one simulation alter the behavior of another, to generate a combined simulation involving multiple disciplines. And then there is the further challenge of bringing together engineers from a variety of specialties, often having different backgrounds, vocabularies and interests. In the core approach to multiphysics simulation, software is developed independently by teams of engineers in multiple disciplines. Often these teams comprise hundreds of specialists in each field, developing world-class simulation systems for each particular domain. A high-level team is then introduced to coordinate the activities across the disciplines. The basic idea is to maintain the essence of the software in each core field unchanged but to introduce more flexibility. Data structures are revised to provide a common framework, material parameters are altered to model interdisciplinary interactions, and solution pathways are introduced from one core software package to another. Modifying existing core software to solve multiphysics problems has achieved remarkable results. It is now possible to model the electrical frequency shifts caused by thermal expansion due to high power electronics, the acoustic noise generated by electromagnetic forces acting on metallic structures, and the simultaneous optimization of mechanical, fluid and electronics behaviors. This talk will describe the fundamental concepts and different technologies for multiphysics simulation, provide discussions for the pros and cons of the technologies, and present applications of multiphysics simulations in practical modeling and design.

Accurate simulation based RF power amplifier design methodology can reduce design cycle time and improve the time to market. Power amplifiers are composed of high power RF transistors that integrate different material technologies into a single device that are mounted on a test fixture comprised of various materials. The complexity of modern power amplifier design requires computer simulations that can emulate the interactions of several material technologies to accurately predict the power amplifier performance. Utilizing the nested multi-technology capabilities of EDA software tools to enhance the power amplifier design process will be discussed in this presentation. In addition to the electro-magnetic simulations of the nested multi-technology for the power amplifier design, integration of thermal and mechanical simulations will be explored.

In general, to solve problems with N parameters, the optimal computational complexity is linear complexity O(N). State-of-the-art fast computational methods rely on iterative matrix solutions to solve large-scale problems. The optimal complexity of an iterative solver is O(NN_{it}N_{rhs}) with N being matrix size, N_{it} the number of iterations and N_{rhs} the number of right hand sides. How to invert or factorize a dense matrix or a sparse matrix of size N in O(N) (optimal) complexity has been a challenging research problem, but of critical importance to the continual advancement of computational electromagnetics and multiphysics. In this talk, I will present recent progresses in developing both direct finite element solvers and integral equation based solvers of optimal complexity for fast and large-scale electromagnetic and multiphysics analysis.

Multiphysics simulations are essential for the development of novel concepts for demanding bandpass filters with extremely high frequency selectivity which are to be operated over a wide temperature range. In this presentation we report how we have modeled and simulated the RF performance and the thermal behavior of a dielectric multimode filter with maximum number of transmission zeros. In order to keep the steep roll-off adjacent to the passband stable at a distinct frequency and to maintain the matching, all couplings and all resonance frequencies of the modes representing the stages of the filter must be properly designed with respect to their thermal drift due to thermal expansion and thermal alteration of the permitivity of dielectric bodies. Combining circuit simulation based on the coupling matrix and full-wave simulation including sensitivity analysis we have optimized the dielectric resonator for the desired multimode operation and we have developed all coupling elements to implement the desired filter characteristics. By means of a sound modeling of each thermal drift effect and by making use of the simulation tools mentioned above we have analyzed each contribution to the thermal drift of the critical parameters in the coupling matrix and we have balanced them by adding compensation elements where necessary. To account for the non-uniform temperature distribution owing to dissipation of RF power when operated at elevated power levels, we have carried out thermal simulations of the filter. Besides we have optimized the design of joints with respect to the contact force to prevent passive intermodulation by applying structure-mechanical simulations. The presentation compares the results of the simulations with measurements of the actual filter performance.

Microwave ablation is based on localized heating of biological tissues, enabled by an electromagnetic field. Antennas for ablation are commonly designed in a forward approach to generate a particular Specific Absorption Rate profile within the target. However, little attention has been dedicated to designing antennas inversely, to allow controllable synthesis of temperature profiles customized for the application. Also, most existing designs do not account for thermal inhomogeneities in tissue. An inverse, multiphysics methodology for microwave ablation antenna design is presented, which involves optimizing the antenna’s current distribution to synthesize a desired temperature profile, while accounting for heat diffusion. The results indicate and quantify the clear advantages of this multiphysics approach. This methodology is successfully applied towards designing an easily configurable printed dipole microwave ablation antenna that addresses several limitations of existing designs. This design provides the functionality of a phased array, and allows controlled synthesis of temperature profiles.

Highly integrated RF frontends are a key component for K/Ka-band satellite communications on-the-move, multimedia entertainment systems, 5G mobile communication as well as 60 GHz broadband home access equipment and backbone networks. Designing such complex modules can be a real challenge. These RF frontend designs are composed of not only a large number of antenna elements but also of complex multilayer feeding structures, RF-transitions, power combiners and active electronics inside of a small volume. This requires accurate 3D EM simulation of the complete front ends to ensure a good RF performance. It will be shown how to merge the RF- and thermal characteristics of active RF-components and 3D EM-simulation results. The dense integration of active electronics in these modules requires a dedicated cooling concept. In addition to the Thermal & RF characterization, the complete module simulation allows to check for layout errors like shorts or open circuits.

This talk addresses multiphysics issues relevant to the design and manufacturing of RF components for satellite applications. To improve the product vs. power handling and mass reduction, several analysis tools are linked together. The interaction of different physical domains like magnetostatic, frequency, multipaction, corona and thermal are addressed in co-simulations for high power circulators. The general design flow will be presented and is including: - Magnetostatic simulation calculates the H-/B-field distribution in the linear and non-linear materials of the structure and the magnetic bias in the ferrite material. - The frequency domain simulation imports the results from the magnetostatic simulation and calculates the S-parameters for the existing geometry and ports. - For high power applications, multipaction and corona effects are simulated as a post process from E-field and the spinwave interaction from the H-field. - The thermal simulation uses the power loss distribution from RF simulation to simulate thermal behavior of material and the input for RF performance vs. temperature. The different simulated domains are compared with measurements, and the accuracy of the models is discussed for every physical domain.

We provide an overview of the challenges and opportunities for multiphysics-based simulation, modeling and optimization for microwave design. This will lead to an panel-like discussion towards the end of the workshop. The panel-like discussion will be between the all the presenting authors and audiences, moderated by Dr. Q.J. Zhang and Dr. Christian Damm, with an expected lively interaction with the audience.

The volume of data being electronically transmitted from place to place is exploding. According to Aureus Analytics, 90% of all the data in the world has been created in the past two years. Additionally, it is estimated that 2.5*10^18 bytes of data are created every single day, and the total amount of data is doubling every 2 years. By 2020 the data created annually is projected to reach 44 zettabytes (44*10^21 bytes). All this data being created is not stationary. Today this data moves across computers, mobile phones, networks, and servers. The fundamental element interconnecting all the devices in the platforms transmitting and receiving this data, is the printed circuit board. The humble printed circuit board (PCB) has existed for approximately 80 years. That period has seen amazing developments in PCB materials and processing technology. But even given this, the challenges in moving many of today’s signals across a PCB are non-trivial. Looking forward to Terabit Ethernet (TbE), potential mmWave elements in 5G, among other means of moving 44 zettabytes of data, can the PCB keep up? In this presentation we will discuss the PCB as an electrical interconnect. Looking at material characterization, fabrication influences on signal integrity, and some fundamental challenges with creating predictable, high speed electrical, behavior in this essential building block of modern electronic systems.

Modern day wireline serial links create a unique challenge for designers when the standards allow for interoperability between manufacturers. In the case of the new 10 Gbps USB Type C Gen 2 standard, the basic channel is made up of a Host, a Cable interconnect, and a downstream Device. Design, debug, and validation of this interoperability require the use of S-parameter models for each of these components so that they can be cascaded together in various configurations. A step-by-step analysis of how to get these S-parameter models will highlight the challenges that higher data rates bring. Specifically the need for modern calibration and simulation techniques to insure that the electrical delay of the cascaded S-Parameters matches with that of an actual full-path physical channel. Measurement of S-parameters with traditional fixture removal methods often leave the user with double counting the mated connector losses and added delay. Adjusting the S-parameter reference plane to the middle of the mated connector can improve the simulation to measurement correlation and validation of interoperability between manufacturers.

A key step in using a measured S-parameter behavioral model of a device under test (DUT) is to remove the fixture effects from the measurements. The VNA is typically calibrated to the end of the coax cables, but the typical DUT does not have coax connectors. This means there has to be a fixture that transforms the geometry of the coax into a circuit board geometry. De-embedding is the typical process used to extract the DUT model from the measured environment. The accuracy of the de-embedding process can be tested using synthesized S-parameter models, but this does not factor in the real world instrument noise and manufacturing variation common to all real world measurements. To test the quality of a de-embedding process, a series of “plug and play” circuit boards were designed and fabricated by Advantest and Keysight. These boards were designed to be separable and independently measured, and combined in series to measure as composite fixture-DUT-fixture structures. This allows an independent measurement of the fixture model on each end of the DUT, as well as the DUT, independent of fixture. By measuring a combined 2x thru of two fixture boards and a composite fixture-DUT-fixture structure, the de-embedded DUT model can be directly compared with the directly measured DUT model. Using this technique, we can evaluate the quality of the de-embedding process including real world measurement effects. We used this technique to look at DUTs that were uniform transmission lines and in the form of Beatty standards. The fixtures were in the form of short and long uniform transmission lines, with and without stubs. From the comparisons, a few metrics for fixture design that results in a robust de-embedding will be presented.

For years, measurement inconsistencies were observed between calibration methods, such as sliding load, TRL and offset shorts, especially at frequencies above 18GHz. Measurement repeatability was another frustrating experience for practitioners of high precision measurements, such as TRL calibration. We were also taught that connector pin gap must be kept to a minimum to obtain the lowest reflection and hence the most accurate calibration and measurement. The same requirement was carried on to the precision test port connectors when TRL calibration was introduced to minimize the “gap” effect. It was expected that with accurately defined calibration standards, imperfect test port errors can be calibrated out provided that the higher order modes generated at the connector interface remain constant. One would expect that if the calibration standards and test port connectors were made to the same level of precision, measurements results should be very similar using different calibration methods. Unfortunately, that hadn’t been the case in practice. There appear to be some error that wasn’t removed by the calibration process and this error depends on the type of calibration standards used. The “connector effect” was discovered recently. It provided the framework that these measurement inconsistencies and repeatability can be explained. This paper will review the observed S-parameter measurement issues, present the theoretical base of the connector effect and show how high frequency measurement accuracy can be improved.

Every high speed digital designer must have a defined process and set of tools available to make accurate s-parameter measurements. Many of these designers will also use various simulation applications and figures of merit to attempt to correlate measurements with models. Popular tools in use today are Advanced Design Software (ADS), Stat-Eye and Channel Operating Margin (COM), to name just a very few. This measurement/model combination of perspective allows for powerful extrapolation of performance to find where the bleeding edge of technology exists for today’s internet infrastructure. The challenge becomes how to use the plethora of sophisticated tools and understand the limitations of each. After all, even the most powerful tool can be unintentionally misused. So, it is important to understand the pitfalls and issues associated with today’s advanced signal integrity tools. This presentation will discuss these issues as well as explore the ultimate goal of the high speed digital designer and what the ultimate s-parameter will look like.

TBD

This is a tutorial presentation, basing on more than 15 years experimental investigations on the application of Low Temperature Cofired Ceramic (LTCC) technology for the design of multilayered millimeter wave systems. After a short overview of the technology and achievable accuracy of components, the influence of losses at higher frequencies on various transmission lines like strip lines, microstrip lines and integrated waveguides are briefly discussed and the quality of passive components is described. The main part of the talk deals with the strategy to design complex systems in a 3D multilayer technology, integrating active circuit chips and antennas, and combining the LTCC modules with other multilayer substrate technologies to systems. This is demonstrated on examples of various realized millimeter wave systems, e.g. a simple 24 GHz radar, a complex 77 GHz radar system of high measurement accuracy for industrial application, a 60 GHz communications system with integrated, switchable antenna, a 60 GHz air plane WLAN system, and complex space qualified systems like a 30 GHz digital beam steered antenna with a large scale of integration. In any case the special technological problems which had to be solved will be addressed and the requirement for a highly qualified simulation technique to realize the systems in a first shot process will be demonstrated.

In this talk, inkjet-/3D-printed flexible antennas, RF electronics and sensors fabricated on paper and other polymer (e.g.LCP) substrates are introduced as a system-level solution for ultra-low-cost mass production of Millimeter-Wave Modules for Communication, Energy Harvesting and Sensing applications. Prof. Tentzeris will briefly touch up the state-of-the-art area of fully-integrated wireless sensor modules on paper or flexible LCP and show the first ever 2D sensor integration with an RFID tag module on paper, as well as numerous 3D and 4D multilayer paper-based and LCP-based RF/microwave structures, that could potentially set the foundation for the truly convergent wireless sensor ad-hoc networks of the future with enhanced cognitive intelligence and "rugged" packaging. Prof. Tentzeris will discuss issues concerning the power sources of "near-perpetual" RF modules, including flexible miniaturized batteries as well as power-scavenging approaches involving thermal, EM, vibration and solar energy forms. The final step of the presentation will involve examples from mmW wearable (e.g. biomonitoring) antennas and RF modules, as well as the first examples of the integration of inkjet-printed nanotechnology-based (e.g.CNT) sensors on paper and organic substrates for Internet of Things (IoT), 5G and autonomous vehicles applications. It has to be noted that the talk will review and present challenges for inkjet-printed organic active and nonlinear devices as well as future directions in the area of environmentally-friendly ("green") RF electronics and "smart-skin' conformal sensors.

Multilayer ceramic Multichip Module (MCM/SoP) is widely accepted as an excellent way for realizing mm-wave systems. However, using conventional thick-film printing, it is very difficult to achieve either fine conductor geometry or trench-filled metal walls for a substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) with applications in high mm-wave frequencies. This talk will present the important advancements in multilayer PI-TF screen printing technology, which has overcome the limitations of conventional ceramic MCMs and has been producing many records in MCM/SoP technologies. This will cover a wide range of high Q and SRF lumped/passive components and circuits (including low loss SIW) up to 180 GHz with remarkably high performance and miniaturization ever reported in MCMs, including LTCC, LCP and Organic. Then will present mmW systems, realized using an innovative assembling technique, including demonstration of the first highly compact complete V-band receiver integrating MMICs with embedded SIW antenna and filters, L/C circuits and other passives on a multilayer substrate.

During the presentation we will described our latest contributions on the several aspects regarding : (1) the additive manufacturing processes we are developing (stereolithography) or using (LTCC) with, in particular the specific use of ceramic materials, (2) the use of nanotechnologies dedicated to the fabrication of CNTs based mmW interconnects for flip-chip integration (3) the multilayer structures we are fabricating dedicated to RF and mmW components and packaging for 3D integration. Test structures operating at 50/60GHz and beyond 100GHz have been fabricated and tested with success. That demonstrates the potential of such technologies.

Additive manufacturing (AM) has gained significant attention in prototyping of complex structures. In the arena of high frequency circuits, AM has been demonstrated to hold potential in the fabrication of light weight, low-cost passive circuits while avoiding the use of conventional microfabrication and cleanroom facilities. Also, allowing design of novel circuits that are difficult to achieve using conventional microlithography approaches and micro-machining. There are several AM techniques that are available that allow in the fabrication of thick (3D) and thin-film structures with tight dimensional control. Here two approaches (Aerosol and Polyjet) are investigated in the fabrication of a range of high frequency circuits in planar and 3D form. Several exemplar microwave, millimeter and Terahertz circuits fabricated using these two types of AM techniques will be presented. This includes microwave and millimeter wave transmission lines on air substrate, air metallic waveguides, resonators, antennas (microstrip, Vivaldi and leaky wave), embedded actives with microfluidic cooling, and THz lens and waveguides. Combining these two AM techniques, several novel circuits are designed and fabricated including oscillators and amplifiers. Highly integrated circuits with small form factors can be designed and combined using a Lego-like assembly. In addition, several AM materials are characterized over a wide frequency range and their properties will be presented. There are many set of challenges (both materials and structural) that still needs to be tackled and these will also be discussed.

Consumer electronics needs have pushed integration technologies towards miniaturization and cost reduction especially in cellular phone and other portable products last two decades. Microwave and millimeter wave products have traditionally been oriented towards space, industrial and military applications which all are performance driven with low in production volumes. This trend has been changing during last years mainly due to introduction of consumer related microwave and millimeter products targeted to handsets as well as near future fifth generation, 5G, telecom products. This presentation focuses to technologies which are targeting to mass producible consumer products and related infrastructure. Technologies covered in this presentation are focusing to silicon based technologies and embedded Wafer Level Ball Grid Array technologies while also showing examples of highly integrated printed circuit board and ceramic solutions. Main topics of the presentation are in integration and miniature modules but not in integrated circuit developments. Examples of miniature components and modules are presented. Also, integrations schemes taken into 5G product plans are presented.

There is a rising demand for custom implementations of radar systems, e.g., for industrial applications. In this context low volume and low cost integration is a must. Low Temperature Cofired Ceramics (LTCC) is a high-frequency material type that is suitable for multilayer structures and applications. Since its relative permittivity is usually in the region of 6 to 10, microwave structures of radar front-ends can be designed in a space-saving way. However, the implementation of patch-antennas on LTCC, such as radar antennas at 77 GHz, require a lower permittivity in order to achieve a desirable efficiency and focusing capability. Therefore, this presentation will present the design of antennas for radar applications in the 77 GHz band based on a novel method of using the multilayer capabilities of LTCC in order to decrease the local permittivity below the antennas. The key is embedding air below the radiating structures, which is challenging in multilayer LTCC processes concerning well defined shapes after sintering. The new methodology laminates carbon inserts on inner layers below the antennas before sintering by using cutouts produced by an Nd:YAG laser. It will be demonstrated that these inserts are burned out completely during sintering and the cavity remains. The process requires an adaption of the sintering profile in order to reduce the sinking of the substrate in the middle of the cavity. Within this presentation, the achievable improvements on antenna beams will be presented by comparative simulation results of 77 GHz antennas with and without the embedded cavity. Furthermore, presented measurement results will verify the effects of the cavity and the suitability of using multilayer LTCC for fully integrated radar front-ends.

The organic multilayer substrate provides a cost effective solution of packaging substrate for millimeter wave application such as WiGig at 60 GHz and future 5G communication system at 38GHz or other millimeter wave band. Active dies in CMOS and GaAs are combined with antenna array embedded in the substrate to form a complete millimeter wave front end module. This talk will present recent progresses in the system design for WiGig at 60 GHz and 5G system at 38GHz as well as substrate material characterization, element antenna and antenna array design. Both broadside and end-fire antenna arrays are employed in the module to give a more thorough radiation pattern coverage. Bondwire interconnect with molding compound between die and transmission line at packaging substrate at 38GHz is also evaluated to find an alternative low cost packaging solution at millimeter wave band.

Inkjet printing and 3D printing emerge as low cost, high performance technologies for RF electronics, with applications ranging from sensors to antennas, front-ends and packaging solutions from RF to millimeter wave frequencies. Additive manufacturing provides a platform for heterogeneous integration of complex circuit structures, materials including metals, dielectrics and semiconductors and packages, from superstrate lens structures, antennas and passive microwave circuits in general, to multilayer systems on package including 3D printed interconnects integrating active devices and MMICs, as well as digital and power signals and thermal management. Starting from an introduction providing a perspective of inkjet/3D printing capabilities and present challenges, this presentation will include recent circuit examples, ranging from fully printed millimeter wave patch antennas and arrays, 3D printed microwave antenna array structures and lenses, with application to wireless power transfer and energy harvesting, communication as well as sensing.

In this talk multi-level backscatter communications combined with wireless power transmission will be discussed and analyzed. The creation of a true passive network will also be presented with some experimental results being explored. The paradigm of the IoT will thus be one of the main issues on the workshop talk with emphasis on zero power consumption wireless communications.

RFID technology is not only suitable for saving a single ID in the memory of a tag. A vast amount of possible applications arises when RFID tags are enhanced with additional functionality. This talk covers a passive UHF RFID-tag enhanced by a general-purpose sensor interface. As a proof of concept a temperature sensor is also integrated together with the sensor interface. Furthermore, a concept for time of flight based localization of passive RFID tags is shown. Another very interesting future application for enhanced RFID tags is predictive maintenance of production machines. The RFID tags are integrated either into the machines or their tooling and continuously report important process parameters. A concept for such a sensor is addressed during the talk. Finally, a feasibility study for controlling actuators with a passive long-range UHF RFID tag is presented.

In this contribution, inkjet-/3D-printed flexible antennas, RF electronics, microfluidic topologies, packaging, interconnects and sensors fabricated on "green"(e.g., paper) and other polymer (e.g., LCP) substrates are introduced as a system-level solution for ultra-low-cost mass production of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Tags and 5G Wireless Sensor Nodes (WSN) up to 60GHz in an approach that could be easily extended to other microwave and wireless applications. Prof. Tentzeris will discuss issues concerning the power sources of "near-perpetual" RF modules, including flexible miniaturized batteries as well as power-scavenging approaches involving thermal, EM, vibration and solar energy forms. The final step of the contribution will involve examples from wearable (e.g. biomonitoring) antennas and RF modules, as well as the first examples of the integration of inkjet-printed nanotechnology-based (e.g., CNT) sensors and shape-changing ("origami") subsystems on paper and organic substrates for 5G Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

In this paper the design of a compact and ultra-light weight wireless sensor node is presented based on backscatter communication. The sensor is optimized for low duty cycle operation and low power consumption and multi-technology energy harvesting is considered for maximum operating range.

This presentation covers backscatter radio - the communication mechanism behind the widely available RFID technology - from the aspect of sensor networking. The challenges of utilizing backscatter radio for wireless sensing include the extension of communication range, spatial power availability for sensor nodes, as well as spectral efficiency. All these issues affect each other, thus the technologies presented jointly address these challenges. The topics cover recent advancements in the backscatter radio research area: low-bitrate analog-modulating scatter sensors, low-power digital communicators, bistatic and multistatic sensor/reader topologies for extended ranges and coverage, and pulse shaping, which has been until recently the missing part to complete backscatter radio as a fully-capable, spectrally-efficient communication scheme.

For the next generation of 5G IoT devices, RFID transponders (tags) have to be miniaturized to tag small devices, enabling them to be part of the IoT (e.g., documents, jewelry, medicine, diagnostic devices). To realize this, miniaturized RFID tags have to be designed that ensure a reliable and robust wireless power transfer and communication. The miniaturization of RFID tags is realized by miniaturizing the tag antennas, which inherently leads to limitations in the tag read range. To combat these limitations and to fulfill the requirements of each application, passive boosting technologies can be exploited to enhance the limited read range of miniaturized tags. In this talk, a classification of miniaturized RFID tags and passive read range boosting technologies will be presented. Complementing this classification, prototypes of RFID tags and boosting devices will be shown with a strong focus on the antenna design and the respective miniaturization and boosting techniques (e.g., exploiting co-integration, packaging, and printing technologies).

With proliferation of miniature wireless sensors every device (however low-tech it may be) is expected to have internet connectivity and there is a widespread Machine to Machine (M2M) and Machine to Human (M2H) and Human to Machine (H2M) interaction wirelessly. This is referred to popularly as Internet of Things (IoT), which will span roughly 200 billion devices worldwide in the near future. It is expected to be a challenge to have reliability and performance of wireless connectivity, which is mainly dependent on not only efficient antenna designs, but also flawless function of these antennas in very complicated environments. One of the key aspects of IoT is requirement of key components to enable communications between devices and objects. Objects need to be augmented with an Auto-ID technology, typically an RFID tag, so that the object is uniquely identifiable. In this talk, various modeling techniques, such as MoM, MLFMM, FEM, FDTD etc, will be presented. Also asymptotic, ray-based method such as the uniform theory of diffraction or Ray Launching geometrical optics (shooting and bouncing rays) will be presented for electrically extremely large RFID problems such as long distance indoor propagation. Also aiding IoT are mobile broadband networks specifically focusing on the next generation of standards, namely 5G. This talk also addresses some of these futuristic technologies that are laying the foundation for the 5G standards, highlighting the concept of massive MIMO that employs antenna arrays and beamforming techniques to address the high data rate demands for IoT.

5G IoT scenarios are foreseen to include billions of devices connected world-widely, including not only cellphones but also small electronics for dedicated operations and machine to machine (M2M) communication. In this contribution a novel exploitation of existing antennas in portable devices for bi-directional near-field wireless charging and data transfer is discussed. The design flow and the circuital choices are presented which enable both operations without affecting the respective performances. Typical cellphone antenna topologies are simultaneously adopted for near-field wireless recharging by means of appropriate feeding networks. Design examples and performance indexes are deeply discussed and compared with other state-of-the-art solutions.

We introduce a new class of antenna systems for the 5G wireless communication protocol and the Internet of Things. Cavity-backed slot antennas are implemented in substrate integrated waveguide technology. By exciting multiple eigenmodes at optimal resonance frequencies, multiband or ultra-wideband performance is obtained. Owing to their extreme antenna-platform isolation, very stable antenna characteristics are obtained in challenging deployment conditions and with active transceiver and energy harvesting electronics directly integrated on the antenna platform.

Antenna still one of the major devices in any wireless application. Antennas have direct impacts on the size, shape and performance of the global wireless system. The physical integration of antennas to devices is a major issue for the designers, as they must deal with additional features like safety and regulation constraints. Nowadays, the tendency is to integrate more and more wireless devices as near as possible to the human body, which is known to be very hostile to RF signal due to its absorbing properties. In this presentation we will introduce a new concept for the design and the implementation of on body wearable antennas for wireless communication, in particular for 5G and Internet of things. The main idea behind this new design is to use a group of elementary antennas with a specific feeding system that allows the realization of suitable radiation pattern with very large space coverage. Indeed the association of several antennas allow the control of radiation pattern in order have a low level of radiation in the region where the body is localized. This specific design is fully compliant to the SAR constraints and frequency masks. The group of antennas and their feeding system are integrated in the same design and can be fully uni-planar which allows their realization on flexible substrate like fabric. We will present the design approach as well as the simulation results. Some realizations and the experimental performance in both anechoic environment and real application will be presented and discussed.

The majority of wireless base station systems are designed to support several frequency bands requiring the use of multiple filters for separating these bands. The number of filters can be reduced by either employing multi-band filters or tunable filters. In the case of multiband filters, one physical filter can be designed to have 2 or 3 simultaneous bands with enough isolation between the bands reducing the number of required filters by a factor of 2 or 3 respectively. Multiband-band filters can be potential employed in satellite communication systems,where a multiband-band filter is used to transmit several noncontiguous channels to the same geographic region through one beam. This talk presents recent developments in high-Q multiband filters.

This presentation will focus on the development of novel substrate integrate waveguide (SIW) filters implemented by using unconventional materials. The SIW technology looks a very suitable approach, able to satisfy the requirements of the future 5G and IoT systems. In fact, SIW technology allows for the implementation of a variety of passive components and for the integration of entire systems in a single dielectric substrate, thus avoiding complex transitions and undesired parasitic effects. Furthermore, the fact that SIW structures are self-shielded represents an important advantage in the integration process, especially for resonating structures like filters. Moreover, the use of non conventional materials represents a key point for IoT systems: in fact, depending on the specific application, different requirements are posed. This presentation will illustrate novel filters based on quarter-mode SIW cavities, half-mode and folded SIW cavities and SIW filters with mushroom-shaped resonators. The use of paper (for low-cost and eco-friendly systems), of textile (for wearable applications), and of additive manufacturing (for low-cost fully 3D structures), will be discussed and experimentally demonstrated.

The design of microwave filters for defense or space applications results in a severe trade-off between losses, selectivity and compactness. Ceramic materials can be used for integrating such filters with high-quality factor. Using 3D and multilayer technologies based on such materials, compact and high-performance filters can be realized. The presentation will detail several designs implementing general Chebyshev functions and lossy filters fabricated using LTCC and 3D technologies.

Waveguide filters are widely used at the output stages of satellite communication payloads, in particular as channel filters integrated within output multiplexers. For such purpose, dual-mode filtering structures in circular waveguide technology are often employed, due to reduced size, mass and footprint, high-Q resonators, and well-known tuning strategies for compensating the manufacturing tolerances. In this talk, novel topologies for these dual-mode circular waveguide filters providing wider tuning ranges (in terms of centre frequency and bandwidth) will be presented, including their complete Computer-Aided Design (CAD) procedure for recovering the desired response with tuning screws. Additionally, new compact solutions for rectangular waveguide channel filters, to be integrated within multiplexer set-ups for measuring high-power effects (in particular Passive Inter-Modulation, PIM) will be also shown.

In 5G active massive MIMO antenna systems, a number of bandpass filters (BPFs) are demanded. The cavity or dielectric BPFs are often used in base stations to meet the high Q-factor and power handling requirement. The independent designs of plenty of cavity or dielectric BPFs suffer for large circuit size, heavy weight and high cost. To solve this problem, the filters are designed with two (or more) input ports and two output ports and two signal channels are realized with the same sets of resonators. Meanwhile, the two channels are isolated. Consequently, by reducing the number of DRs and cavities, the size of the presented dual-channel filters can be reduced by more than 40% as compared to the conventional two independent BPFs. And thus the weight and the cost are also substantially reduced. This talk focuses on the design techniques for the dual-channel filters. The design examples with a variety of configurations for 5G MIMO systems will be presented.

Microwave bandpass filters and diplexers in base station of mobile communication system always require wide- or multi-band passbands, low in-band insertion loss, high-power handling capacity and compact size. Multiple-mode resonator (MMR) on a cavity has been recently developed to meet these various requirements in designing of multi-/wide-band filters with advanced functionalities and their constituted diplexers by our research group. In this talk, detailed description will be provided to report the working principles and design procedures of our proposed filters and diplexers on various cavity-based MMRs. Different from the conventional approach in design of cavity filters/diplexers with resorting to a few single-mode resonator, the proposed one herein make effective use of a few resonant modes in a single MMR cavity. As such, this MMR-inspired technique has great capability in achieving size miniaturization and widening bandwidth of passbands. Moreover, all the designed filters and diplexers are fabricated and tested to experimentally validate the predicted filtering performances.