As the overwhelming demand for the wireless mobile data traffic continues to grow dramatically, multiple mm-wave frequency bands have been specified and investigated for 5G mobile networks to deliver ultra-high-speed wireless backhaul connectivity [1]. The 24.25-29.5 GHz and 37-43.5 GHz bands are the most promising ones for 5G early deployments. For instance, mainland China and Japan have selected 24.75-27.5 GHz and 27.5-29.5 GHz, respectively, for licensed use [2]. Highly integrated mm-wave transceiver systems have been actively studied and investigated to support multi-Gb/s data rate in wireless communication. This thesis also focuses on the design of a mm-wave transceiver for 5G communication.

In the first part of this work, we present a co-simulation platform to link the ba...[ Read more ]

As the overwhelming demand for the wireless mobile data traffic continues to grow dramatically, multiple mm-wave frequency bands have been specified and investigated for 5G mobile networks to deliver ultra-high-speed wireless backhaul connectivity [1]. The 24.25-29.5 GHz and 37-43.5 GHz bands are the most promising ones for 5G early deployments. For instance, mainland China and Japan have selected 24.75-27.5 GHz and 27.5-29.5 GHz, respectively, for licensed use [2]. Highly integrated mm-wave transceiver systems have been actively studied and investigated to support multi-Gb/s data rate in wireless communication. This thesis also focuses on the design of a mm-wave transceiver for 5G communication.

In the first part of this work, we present a co-simulation platform to link the base-band digital signals and the RF front-end to evaluate the performance of circuit blocks in transceiver systems. M-QAM OFDM modulation scheme is implemented for BER and constellation check. This platform is based on the MATLAB, ADS, Cadence, and EMX, and it supports the mm-wave receiver IC design from system specifications to circuit implementations. In the second part, we propose a mm-wave direct conversion receiver front-end, with a focus on developing an LNA in the 24-32 GHz to meet the gain, noise figure, linearity, bandwidth, and area requirements, simultaneously. A novel compact three-coil transformer is employed to perform single-ended to differential conversion, broadband input matching, gm-boosting, and noise suppression at the LNA input. The proposed LNA is further integrated with an IQ mixer, a VGA, and output buffers to build a broadband receiver front-end. In the last part, we evaluate the circuit performance in the co-simulation platform. The proposed receiver front-end features a 3-dB bandwidth of 7.5 GHz, centered at 27.5 GHz. The simulated noise figure is below 5 dB. With 1 GHz signal bandwidth and 16-QAM modulation scheme, it achieves a 3.76 Gb/s data rate, a 3.8% EVM, and a BER of less than 10-6. This co-simulation platform can be further implemented to support varieties of transceiver IC design. Such as, power amplifiers, antennas, and other circuit bloc