Sample Lecture – “mm-Wave & THz CMOS IC Design” Online Course (2022)
Recent years have seen a tremendous growth in mm-Wave integrated systems in CMOS. The advances of the fT & fMAX of CMOS have enabled the integration of complete mm-Wave systems into Silicon, resulting in a reduction of production cost, leading to a widespread market adoption of many mm-Wave products, such as automotive radar & mm-Wave 5G/6G communication.
CMOS is in the first place optimized and tailored for digital integration. Achieving analog performance at mm-Wave frequencies is not trivial and requires a thorough understanding of transistor parasitics and layout limitations on one hand, and system-level requirements on the other hand. Compared to MMIC design in III/V the availability of many metal layers in CMOS allows novel mm-Wave components which are not available in III/V.
Integrating mm-Wave circuits in CMOS are only meaningful if an entire SOC is aimed for. This also comes with several challenges, such as unwanted coupling between circuits and ground loops, while at the same time allowing additional (digital) control of the front-end circuits.
This comprehensive course will investigate these challenges & trade-offs and takes the participants on a journey of understanding mm-Wave circuits. Starting at system level requirements, going all the way down to layout optimization and passive components with in-depth discussion of various building blocks & design examples including techniques for area & power-efficient designs. Towards the end of the course, common design, layout & measurement errors are discussed as well as an outlook for future mm-Wave & THz systems.
Lecture #1 – Circuit–Level Challenges of mm-Wave Systems
5G/6G, mm-Wave, beamforming, radar, phased arrays. Linearity, gain, efficiency, output power.
Lecture #2 – CMOS Transistors at mm-Wave
FOM for HF operation (fT, fMAX, MSG, GMAX), limitations of MOSFET, layout, neutralisation.
Lecture #3 – CMOS Passives at mm-Wave & Transformer-based mm-Wave Design
Optimizing passives, on–chip & slow-wave TL, transformers, tech comparison, stability, diff. CMOS IC.
Lecture #4 – Design & Implementation of mm-Wave CMOS Building Blocks
mm-Wave CMOS blocks for Tx/Rx: LNA, mixers, VCOs, dividers. Examples in 16nm, 28nm & 40nm CMOS.
Lecture #5 – Design & Implementation of mm-Wave CMOS PAs
mm-Wave PAs (20GHz-160GHz). Class AB, Doherty, outphasing, polar. Stability. Common mistakes.
Lecture #6 – Things you won’t find in the handbook: Common Errors
Stability, decoupling & bypass caps, layout, coupling effects, good practices, measurement flaws.
Lecture #7 – Polymer Microwave Fibres: Merging mm-Wave, Wireline & Optical
Dielectric waveguides. System architectures. 40nm & 28nm examples with >10Gbps over >10meters.
Lecture #8 – THz in CMOS
MOSFET >fMAX. Rectification & injection locking. Harmonic operation. 40nm & 28nm for 410-600GHz.
Duration: 16 hours
Format: 8 x 2-hour recorded lectures including interactive Q&A.
Work: Homework assignments (optional) will consolidate the learning from the lectures.
Included:
- Course notes (PDF)
- Homework assignments (PDF)
- Lecture recordings (8 weeks playback access)
- Course homepage
- Class discussion forum (offline Q&A)
- Recommended reading list
- Extra material
Patrick Reynaert was born in Wilrijk, Belgium, in 1976. He received the Master of Industrial Sciences in Electronics (ing.) from the Karel de Grote Hogeschool, Antwerpen, Belgium in 1998 and both the Master of Electrical Engineering (ir.) and the Ph.D. in Engineering Science (dr.) from the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium in 2001 and 2006 respectively.
During 2006-2007, he was a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences of the University of California at Berkeley, with the support of a BAEF Francqui Fellowship. During the summer of 2007, he was a visiting researcher at Infineon, Villach, Austria.
Since October 2007, he is a Professor at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), department of Electrical Engineering (ESAT-MICAS). His main research interests include mm-wave and THz CMOS circuit design, high-speed circuits and RF power amplifiers.
Dr. Reynaert is a Senior Member of the IEEE and chair of the IEEE SSCS Benelux Chapter. He serves or has served on the technical program committees of several international conferences including ISSCC, ESSCIRC, RFIC, PRIME and IEDM. He has served as Associate Editor for Transactions on Circuits and Systems – I, and as Guest Editor for the Journal of Solid-State Circuits.
He received the 2011 TSMC-Europractice Innovation Award, the ESSCIRC-2011 Best Paper award and the 2014 2nd Bell Labs Prize.
