CMOS technology has now reached a state of evolution, in terms of both frequency and noise, where it is becoming a serious contender for radio frequency (RF) applications in the GHz range. Cutoff frequencies of about 50 GHz have been reported for 0.18 æm CMOS technology, and are expected to reach about 100 GHz when the feature size shrinks to 100 nm within a few years. This translates into CMOS circuit operating frequencies well into the GHz range, which covers the frequency range of many of today's popular wireless products, such as cell phones, GPS (Global Positioning System) and Bluetooth. Of course, the great interest in RF CMOS comes from the obvious advantages of CMOS technology in terms of production cost, high-level integration, and the ability to combine digital, analog and RF circuits on the same chip. This book discusses many of the challenges facing the CMOS RF circuit designer in terms of device modeling and characterization, which are crucial issues in circuit simulation and design.

The striking feature of this book is its coverage of the upper GHz domain. However, the latest technologies, applications and broad range of circuits are discussed. Design examples are provided including cookbook-like optimization strategies. This state-of-the-art book is valuable for researchers as well as for engineers in industry. Furthermore, the book serves as fruitful basis for lectures in the area of IC design.

This book, first published in 2004, is an expanded and thoroughly revised edition of Tom Lee's acclaimed guide to the design of gigahertz RF integrated circuits. A new chapter on the principles of wireless systems provides a bridge between system and circuit issues. The chapters on low-noise amplifiers, oscillators and phase noise have been significantly expanded. The chapter on architectures now contains several examples of complete chip designs, including a GPS receiver and a wireless LAN transceiver, that bring together the theoretical and practical elements involved in producing a prototype chip. Every section has been revised and updated with findings in the field and the book is packed with physical insights and design tips, and includes a historical overview that sets the whole field in context. With hundreds of circuit diagrams and homework problems this is an ideal textbook for students taking courses on RF design and a valuable reference for practising engineers.

At the 90-nm node, silicon technologies have reached a point where the transistor fT and f MAX simultaneously exceed 150 GHz, with a 1.2 V supply. With low fabrication costs for high volumes of circuits, RF-CMOS technologies are ideally suited to realize exciting new high bandwidth consumer products that operate in the mm-wave regime. Before this can happen, models of both active and passive devices will require a high degree of accuracy from DC, all the way up to mm-wave frequencies. This thesis presents new techniques that help leverage the power of measurements to characterize and model devices of nano-CMOS technologies well into the mm-wave regime. In particular, two new de-embedding techniques are devised in order to improve measurement accuracy, and reduce wafer area consumption. Moreover, the measured characteristics of various microstrip lines, varactors, and n-MOSFETs fabricated in a 90-nm RF-CMOS technology are analyzed in order to identify optimal geometries for high frequency design. An extraction methodology for a scalable physical model of accumulation-mode MOS varactors is also included.

MOSFET radio-frequency characterization and modeling is studied, both with SOI CMOS and bulk CMOS technologies. The network analyzer measurement uncertainties are studied, as is their effect on the small signal parameter extraction of MOS devices. These results can be used as guidelines for designing MOS RF characterization layouts with as small an AC extraction error as possible. The results can also be used in RF model extraction as criteria for required optimization accuracy. Modifications to the digital CMOS model equivalent circuit are studied to achieve better RF behavior for the MOS model. The benefit of absorbing the drain and source parasitic series resistances into the current description is evaluated. It seems that correct high-frequency behavior is not possible to describe using this technique. The series resistances need to be defined extrinsically. Different bulk network alternatives were evaluated using scalable device models up to 10 GHz. Accurate output impedance behavior of the model requires a bulk resistance network. It seems that good accuracy improvement is achieved with just a single bulk resistor. Additional improvement is achieved by increasing the number of resistors to three. At this used frequency range no further accuracy improvement was achieved by increasing the resistor amount over three. Two modeling approaches describing the distributed gate behavior are also studied with different MOS transistor layouts. Both approaches improve the RF characteristics to some extent but with limited device geometry. Both distributed gate models describe well the high frequency device behavior of devices not commonly used at radio frequencies.

This book focuses on high performance radio frequency integrated circuits (RF IC) design in CMOS. 1. Development of radio frequency ICs Wireless communications has been advancing rapidly in the past two decades. Many high performance systems have been developed, such as cellular systems (AMPS, GSM, TDMA, CDMA, W-CDMA, etc. ), GPS system (global po- tioning system) and WLAN (wireless local area network) systems. The rapid growth of VLSI technology in both digital circuits and analog circuits provides benefits for wireless communication systems. Twenty years ago not many p- ple could imagine millions of transistors in a single chip or a complete radio for size of a penny. Now not only complete radios have been put in a single chip, but also more and more functions have been realized by a single chip and at a much lower price. A radio transmits and receives electro-magnetic signals through the air. The signals are usually transmitted on high frequency carriers. For example, a t- ical voice signal requires only 30 Kilohertz bandwidth. When it is transmitted by a FM radio station, it is often carried by a frequency in the range of tens of megahertz to hundreds of megahertz. Usually a radio is categorized by its carrier frequency, such as 900 MHz radio or 5 GHz radio. In general, the higher the carrier frequency, the better the directivity, but the more difficult the radio design.