Proposed design methodologies of mixed-signal 3D system-in-package for enhanced noise isolation and application to T-DMB system

Abstract

System-in-Package (SiP) solution realizes an extremely small sized system which is suitable for mixed-signal mobile applications. However, integration of digital and RF dies with a number of interconnections between them within limited area can cause noise coupling from digital circuits to RF circuits. In this paper, a fully operating Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (T-DMB) system, one of the example of mixed-signal system, is implemented in a form of a three-dimensional (3D) SiP by stacking dies, on which a series of design methodologies in terms of signal and power integrity to improve the noise isolation level between digital and RF signals, is applied. As a result, the size of system is reduced to 10mm x 10mm, which is the smallest size for full T-DMB system with multimedia, and measured RF sensitivity is enhanced by 17dB and 45dB for band-3(173~240MHz) and L-band (1.452~1.492GHz), respectively. In addition, To analyze the noise effect on the BER (Bit-error-rate) in the designed SiP, system model for T-DMB communication is proposed, and the noise isolation effect of proposed design of SiP is verified by the system modeling as well as measurement of RF sensitivity.