Study on low-power and wideband non-coherent OOK receiver for millimeter-wave wireless communication

Abstract

This is a dissertation on the study of millimeter-wave, low-power and wideband on-off modulation receivers. The millimeter wave frequency band is suitable for implementing Gigabit high-speed communication since it has wider bandwidth than the lower frequency band. In addition, as the millimeter wavelength is shorter than that of the lower frequency band, an inductor and capacitor can be integrated into a circuit. Accordingly, applications for high-speed wireless communication based on such advantages are being studied. However, due to the greater free space path loss in the millimeter frequency, it should be used for short-range rather than long-distance communication and is suitable for wireless communication indoors or within a fixed near distance. In this dissertation, I design two types of millimeter-wave on-off keying receivers for low-power and high-speed communication and test their performance. First, an 80-GHz on-off keying receiver, which is an application in a fixed distance, is designed and verified for inter-chip wireless communication. Second, a 60-GHz on-off keying receiver for high-speed beamforming is designed and verified to enable Gbps data transmission in a short range. This dissertation consists of four chapters. Chapter 1 explains the necessity of the receiver in the millimeter wave frequency band and elaborates on why the on-off modulation scheme is suitable to drive low power consumption. In addition, the optimal bandwidth of the receiver is identified for high-speed communication. Finally, the required signal-to-noise ratio is discovered for error-free communication. Chapter 2 designs and implements the integrated circuit of the 80-GHz broadband on-off keying receiver for inter-chip wireless communication requiring low power and high speed, and verifies 20-Gbps data transmission by using the TLY-5 substrate. The experiment proves that this receiver circuit features energy efficiency of 2.3 pJ/bit, which is the lowest among the state-of-the-arts. Chapter 3 designs and implements the integrated circuit of the 60-GHz band on-off keying receiver for high-speed beamforming to enable indoor, high-speed, short-range and wireless video transmission. Moreover, the receiverintegrated circuit is packaged by FR-4 substrate, and it is tested that it can be integrated with a beamformer for 7 Gbps high-speed communication. In order to regain the broadband characteristics of the entire receiver, a gain equalization technique is employed, and this chapter introduces the circuit applied for implementation. Furthermore, beamforming technology must be adopted for indoor video transmission in a free direction, and a received signal strength indicator in a wide range is required for interactions. By adopting the gain equalization technique, the sensitivity variation reduces to below 2 dB, and it is verified that 8 Gbps data transmission and energy efficiency of 2.58 pJ/bit can be achieved in the PRBS length of 231-1. As a result, it is confirmed that it can be integrated with a high-speed beamformer. Finally, Chapter 4 summarizes and concludes this dissertation.