Millimeter-wave beamforming front-end IC with true-time-delay phase shifter

Abstract

As the carrier frequency of the mobile communication systems is increased, millimeter-wave beamforming front-end (FE) IC is widely studied. In this dissertation, millimeter-wave beamforming FE IC with true-time-delay (TTD) phase shifter is presented.In chapter 2, To implement the FE IC in small form-factor, inductor-shared RF switches are proposed. The proposed RF switches share the redundant matching networks, resulting in low-loss small-size implementation. A TTD phase shifter is necessary for distortion less beamforming. In chapter 3, A size-efficient TTD phase shifter is proposed. The delay lines and reference lines of the phase shifter are implemented with microstrip lines and inverted microstrip lines in the same space, respectively. In chapter 4, FE structure using common gate low noise amplifier as an antenna switch is proposed to reduce the transmitter/receiver combing loss and area and increase efficiency and signal-to-noise-ratio of the system. Finally, the dynamic conductance control (DCC) and body carrier injection (BCI) techniques are proposed to linearize the millimeter-wave power amplifier (PA) of the FE IC. The proposed DCC and BCI techniques improve linearity of PA in millimeter-wave in terms of AM-AM, AM-PM and IMD3.