Supply-Insensitive Frequency Synthesis for an LDO-Free Powering Scheme in SoCs

The scaling of CMOS technology in deep submicron process nodes is accompanied by the integration of more and more functional blocks of a system, whether digital or analog/RF, onto the same chip (i.e., system-onchip, SoC). These blocks would also place different requirements on their power supplies. To provide various static or dynamically...

Modular time-of-flight image sensor for light detection and ranging: A digital approach to LIDAR

Constant increase in data processing efficiency has enabled, among many other things, the intensive use of depth mapping technologies. Consumer applications, such as gaming, augmented and virtual realities (AR/VR), and other human-machine interfaces, are typically based on intensive image processing, either by triangulation and/or structured...

High-Purity Digitally Intensive Frequency Synthesis Exploiting Millimeter-Wave Harmonics

This thesis focuses on improving the phase noise and power efficiency<br/>of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) frequency synthesizers in nanometer CMOS.<br/>The mm-wave frequency spectrum is widely adopted in various upcoming<br/>volume commercial wireless applications. These new applications provide<br/>more interconnection between the physical and...

RF CMOS Oscillators for Cellular Applications

Power Efficient RF/mm-wave Oscillators and Power Amplifiers for Wireless Applications

Fully Integrated SAW-Less Discrete-Time Superheterodyne Receiver

There are nowadays strong business and technical demands to integrate radio- frequency (RF) receivers (RX) into a complete system-on-chip (SoC) realized in scaled digital processes technology. As a consequence, the RF circuitry has to function well in face of reduced power supply ( V DD ) while the CMOS device threshold voltage ( V th ) stays...

Design of RF Oscillators for Wireless Digital Transmitters

Cost reduction is one of the main driving forces for integration. As such, advanced CMOS technologies offer excellent digital functionality and high-density integration capabilities. Properties that persuade designers to exploit new digitally assisted approaches rather than following conventional analogue techniques. Using these new concepts,...

Fully Integrated Discrete-Time Superheterodyne Receiver in Nano-Scale CMOS

In a radio-frequency (RF) system-on-chip (SoC), a digital baseband/application processor, which occupies most of the silicon area, determines the SoC fabrication process technology and voltage supply. The rest of the circuitry, including RF front-end and frequency synthesizer, must then adopt the chosen process technology, i.e., presently low...

Energy Efficient and Compact RF High-Power Amplifiers

The main objectives of this thesis are to improve the energy efficiency and physical form-factor of high-power amplifiers in base station applications. As such, the focus of this dissertation is placed on the outphasing amplifier concept, which can offer high-efficiency, good linearity and excellent opportunities for system integration. With...

All-Digital I/Q RF-DAC

Due to the severe cost pressure of consumer electronics, a migration to an advanced nanoscale CMOS processes, which is primarily developed for fast and low-power digital circuits operating at low supply voltages, is necessary, but it forces wireless RF transceivers to exploit more and more digital circuitry. These basic CMOS properties tend to...

Millimeter-Wave Digitally-Assisted Frequency Synthesizer in CMOS