A 0.2–3.3 GHz 2.4 dB NF 45 dB gain CMOS current-mode receiver front-end

A CMOS fully differential current-mode front-end for SAW-less receivers is proposed. The noise-canceling LNTA has a main path of the common-gate (CG) stage and an auxiliary path of the inverter stage. A current mirror is used to combine the signals from the main and auxiliary paths in current mode. The stacked nMOS/pMOS configurations improve their power efficiency. The traditional stacked tri-state inverter as D-latch replaced by the discrete inverter and transmission gate enables a reduced supply voltage of divider core. LO generator based on the improved divider provides quarter LO signals to drive the proposed LNTA-shared receiver front-end. Simulation results in 180 nm CMOS indicate that the integrated receiver front-end provides an NF of 2.4 dB, and a maximum gain of 45 dB from 0.2 to 3.3 GHz. The in-band (IB) and out-of-band (OB) IIP3 of 2.5 dBm and 4 dBm, are obtained, respectively. With CMOS scaling down continuously, CMOS devices are providing increased transit frequency and reduced intrinsic parasitics which are important for radio frequency (RF) and millimeter-wave applications. As a promising solution, CMOS RF delivers comparable performance to silicon bipolar and GaAs devices but at a much lower cost and higher integration level. Supply voltage reduction with CMOS scaling down also poses a stringent linearity requirement. Avoiding the conventional trade-off between the supply voltage and linearity headroom, the proposed receiver front-end based on the current mode principle is with weak linearity dependency on the supply voltage and provides excellent anti-blocker interference capability.

Low Loss Photodielectric Materials for 5G HS/HF Applications

Fifth generation network technology, often referred to as 5G, holds great potential for higher communication speeds, higher data transmission rates and improved connectivity, however, current dielectric materials lack sufficiently low dielectric loss (Df) at desired form factors for next-generation devices. While photoimageable dielectrics will certainly play a role in 5G manufacturing, many of the chemistries that have evolved and are suitable for photodielectrics (aqueous developed and polar solvent developed materials) have a Df that is too high for a 5G devices. Arylalkyl thermoset polymers (ATPs) have long been known for its low dielectric properties and found use in many high frequency applications, especially GaAs devices. An existing ATP photodielectric, CYCLOTENE™ 4000 Series Dielectric is characterized and compared to a newly designed experimental platform herein called 5G-XP-1. The platform developed utilizes new monomer and polymer chemistry to deliver a system capable of low temperature cure within 1 hour between 170–200°C, self-priming adhesion on silicon, copper, silicon nitride and polyimide and low Df at high frequency in a full formulation (<0.005 20–40GHz). 5G-XP-1 is deposited as a spin on photodielectric material but is still capable of achieving a variety of final film thicknesses from 15–25 μm. More importantly the formulation can achieve high aspect ratio imaging with 1:1 AR vias using an i-Line Karl Süss Mask Aligner. Moreover, this photodielectric material can be developed using environmentally-friendly solvents, such as esters like propylene glycol monomethyl ether acetate (PGMEA). The new experimental material 5G-XP-1 spin on photodielectric material demonstrates considerable promise for next-generation 5G devices, with future improvements on mechanical properties already in progress.