Millimeter-wave CMOS transceiver front-end circuits for future energy-efficient, linear, and wideband communication systems

Abstract

To address the exponentially growing data-rate demand, it is envisioned that mm-Wave will be extensively employed in 5G-and-beyond communication system for its broader spectra and proportionate increases of channel capacity. Viable mm-Wave TX front-end solutions are expected to support multi-Gbps spectrum-efficiency modulated signals, such as high-order QAMs. The corresponding large PAPRs of the high-order QAM and OFDM push the already stringent linearity-efficiency requirements on the deployed TXs/PAs. On one hand, the TX/PA must exhibit excellent linearity over a large dynamic range to maintain the signal fidelity. On the other hand, the TX/PA should enhance its efficiency at PBO to minimize overall power consumption and thus alleviate thermal management. Feasible mm-Wave RX front-end solutions should achieve high sensitivity and linearity while maintaining a wide bandwidth to handle high-speed and high-order modulated signals. A low RX noise figure and the resulting high RX sensitivity are essential to compensate the high path loss at mm-Wave in wireless communication. Moreover, massive MIMO and phased array architectures are extensively utilized to improve mm-Wave link performance and spatial diversity via beamforming. A high linearity RX implementation is required to avoid decorrelations among the MIMO/phased-array elements and mitigate intermodulation distortions during concurrent multi-beams/streams receiving. My Ph.D. research aims to exploit new circuit architectures and techniques to address the mm-Wave transceiver design challenges.