On-chip artificial transmission lines, enabling compact Si-based mmWave ICs

Author

Trivedi, Vishal P. ; To, Kun-Hin ; Huang, W. Margaret

Author_Institution

Freescale Semicond. Inc., Tempe, AZ, USA

fYear

2011

fDate

17-19 Jan. 2011

Firstpage

21

Lastpage

24

Abstract

On-chip integration of artificial (slow-wave) transmission lines (ATL) formed by periodic loading of microstrip lines with MIM capacitors is demonstrated, for the first time, using 0.18μm SiGe:C BiCMOS. We demonstrate 2× length-reduction of λ/4-stub RF choke and filters at 38GHz and at 77GHz. Due to the extensive use of TLs in mmWave design, ATL has more potential for enabling compact mmWave design than technology scaling. A simplified theory is also presented to design mmWave ATLs. Finally, BEOL-based metal-on-metal (MOM) capacitor instead of MIM capacitor is proposed for ATL improvement based on RF characterization of 65nm CMOS.

Keywords

BiCMOS integrated circuits; Ge-Si alloys; capacitors; elemental semiconductors; field effect MIMIC; microstrip lines; silicon; transmission lines; BiCMOS integrated circuit; MIM capacitors; MOM capacitor; Si; SiGe:C; metal-on-metal capacitor; microstrip lines; mmWave integrated circuit; on-chip artificial transmission lines; on-chip integration; size 0.18 mum; size 65 nm; slow wave transmission lines; Capacitance; Capacitors; Inductors; MIM capacitors; Moment methods; Radio frequency; System-on-a-chip; CMOS; artificial transmission line; mm-wave; slow-wave; transmission line;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Silicon Monolithic Integrated Circuits in RF Systems (SiRF), 2011 IEEE 11th Topical Meeting on

Conference_Location

Phoenix, AZ

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-8060-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SIRF.2011.5719313

Filename

5719313