Matching Items (11)
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- All Subjects: BIST
- All Subjects: RF
- Creators: Bakkaloglu, Bertan
- Creators: Cao, Yu
- Member of: ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Description
Current sensing ability is one of the most desirable features of contemporary current or voltage mode controlled DC-DC converters. Current sensing can be used for over load protection, multi-stage converter load balancing, current-mode control, multi-phase converter current-sharing, load independent control, power efficiency improvement etc. There are handful existing approaches for current sensing such as external resistor sensing, triode mode current mirroring, observer sensing, Hall-Effect sensors, transformers, DC Resistance (DCR) sensing, Gm-C filter sensing etc. However, each method has one or more issues that prevent them from being successfully applied in DC-DC converter, e.g. low accuracy, discontinuous sensing nature, high sensitivity to switching noise, high cost, requirement of known external power filter components, bulky size, etc. In this dissertation, an offset-independent inductor Built-In Self Test (BIST) architecture is proposed which is able to measure the inductor inductance and DCR. The measured DCR enables the proposed continuous, lossless, average current sensing scheme. A digital Voltage Mode Control (VMC) DC-DC buck converter with the inductor BIST and current sensing architecture is designed, fabricated, and experimentally tested. The average measurement errors for inductance, DCR and current sensing are 2.1%, 3.6%, and 1.5% respectively. For the 3.5mm by 3.5mm die area, inductor BIST and current sensing circuits including related pins only consume 5.2% of the die area. BIST mode draws 40mA current for a maximum time period of 200us upon start-up and the continuous current sensing consumes about 400uA quiescent current. This buck converter utilizes an adaptive compensator. It could update compensator internally so that the overall system has a proper loop response for large range inductance and load current. Next, a digital Average Current Mode Control (ACMC) DC-DC buck converter with the proposed average current sensing circuits is designed and tested. To reduce chip area and power consumption, a 9 bits hybrid Digital Pulse Width Modulator (DPWM) which uses a Mixed-mode DLL (MDLL) is also proposed. The DC-DC converter has a maximum of 12V input, 1-11 V output range, and a maximum of 3W output power. The maximum error of one least significant bit (LSB) delay of the proposed DPWM is less than 1%.
ContributorsLiu, Tao (Author) / Bakkaloglu, Bertan (Thesis advisor) / Ozev, Sule (Committee member) / Vermeire, Bert (Committee member) / Cao, Yu (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
With increasing demand for System on Chip (SoC) and System in Package (SiP) design in computer and communication technologies, integrated inductor which is an essential passive component has been widely used in numerous integrated circuits (ICs) such as in voltage regulators and RF circuits. In this work, soft ferromagnetic core material, amorphous Co-Zr-Ta-B, was incorporated into on-chip and in-package inductors in order to scale down inductors and improve inductors performance in both inductance density and quality factor. With two layers of 500 nm Co-Zr-Ta-B films a 3.5X increase in inductance and a 3.9X increase in quality factor over inductors without magnetic films were measured at frequencies as high as 1 GHz. By laminating technology, up to 9.1X increase in inductance and more than 5X increase in quality factor (Q) were obtained from stripline inductors incorporated with 50 nm by 10 laminated films with a peak Q at 300 MHz. It was also demonstrated that this peak Q can be pushed towards high frequency as far as 1GHz by a combination of patterning magnetic films into fine bars and laminations. The role of magnetic vias in magnetic flux and eddy current control was investigated by both simulation and experiment using different patterning techniques and by altering the magnetic via width. Finger-shaped magnetic vias were designed and integrated into on-chip RF inductors improving the frequency of peak quality factor from 400 MHz to 800 MHz without sacrificing inductance enhancement. Eddy current and magnetic flux density in different areas of magnetic vias were analyzed by HFSS 3D EM simulation. With optimized magnetic vias, high frequency response of up to 2 GHz was achieved. Furthermore, the effect of applied magnetic field on on-chip inductors was investigated for high power applications. It was observed that as applied magnetic field along the hard axis (HA) increases, inductance maintains similar value initially at low fields, but decreases at larger fields until the magnetic films become saturated. The high frequency quality factor showed an opposite trend which is correlated to the reduction of ferromagnetic resonant absorption in the magnetic film. In addition, experiments showed that this field-dependent inductance change varied with different patterned magnetic film structures, including bars/slots and fingers structures. Magnetic properties of Co-Zr-Ta-B films on standard organic package substrates including ABF and polyimide were also characterized. Effects of substrate roughness and stress were analyzed and simulated which provide strategies for integrating Co-Zr-Ta-B into package inductors and improving inductors performance. Stripline and spiral inductors with Co-Zr-Ta-B films were fabricated on both ABF and polyimide substrates. Maximum 90% inductance increase in hundreds MHz frequency range were achieved in stripline inductors which are suitable for power delivery applications. Spiral inductors with Co-Zr-Ta-B films showed 18% inductance increase with quality factor of 4 at frequency up to 3 GHz.
ContributorsWu, Hao (Author) / Yu, Hongbin (Thesis advisor) / Bakkaloglu, Bertan (Committee member) / Cao, Yu (Committee member) / Chickamenahalli, Shamala (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Radio frequency (RF) transceivers require a disproportionately high effort in terms of test development time, test equipment cost, and test time. The relatively high test cost stems from two contributing factors. First, RF transceivers require the measurement of a diverse set of specifications, requiring multiple test set-ups and long test times, which complicates load-board design, debug, and diagnosis. Second, high frequency operation necessitates the use of expensive equipment, resulting in higher per second test time cost compared with mixed-signal or digital circuits. Moreover, in terms of the non-recurring engineering cost, the need to measure complex specfications complicates the test development process and necessitates a long learning process for test engineers. Test time is dominated by changing and settling time for each test set-up. Thus, single set-up test solutions are desirable. Loop-back configuration where the transmitter output is connected to the receiver input are used as the desirable test set- up for RF transceivers, since it eliminates the reliance on expensive instrumentation for RF signal analysis and enables measuring multiple parameters at once. In-phase and Quadrature (IQ) imbalance, non-linearity, DC offset and IQ time skews are some of the most detrimental imperfections in transceiver performance. Measurement of these parameters in the loop-back mode is challenging due to the coupling between the receiver (RX) and transmitter (TX) parameters. Loop-back based solutions are proposed in this work to resolve this issue. A calibration algorithm for a subset of the above mentioned impairments is also presented. Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) is a system-level parameter that is specified for most advanced communication standards. EVM measurement often takes extensive test development efforts, tester resources, and long test times. EVM is analytically related to system impairments, which are typically measured in a production test i environment. Thus, EVM test can be eliminated from the test list if the relations between EVM and system impairments are derived independent of the circuit implementation and manufacturing process. In this work, the focus is on the WLAN standard, and deriving the relations between EVM and three of the most detrimental impairments for QAM/OFDM based systems (IQ imbalance, non-linearity, and noise). Having low cost test techniques for measuring the RF transceivers imperfections and being able to analytically compute EVM from the measured parameters is a complete test solution for RF transceivers. These techniques along with the proposed calibration method can be used in improving the yield by widening the pass/fail boundaries for transceivers imperfections. For all of the proposed methods, simulation and hardware measurements prove that the proposed techniques provide accurate characterization of RF transceivers.
ContributorsNassery, Afsaneh (Author) / Ozev, Sule (Thesis advisor) / Bakkaloglu, Bertan (Committee member) / Kiaei, Sayfe (Committee member) / Kitchen, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) is one of the fastest growing field in silicon industry. Low cost production is key for any company to improve their market share. MEMS testing is challenging since input to test a MEMS device require physical stimulus like acceleration, pressure etc. Also, MEMS device vary with process and requires calibration to make them reliable. This increases test cost and testing time. This challenge can be overcome by combining electrical stimulus based testing along with statistical analysis on MEMS response for electrical stimulus and also limited physical stimulus response data. This thesis proposes electrical stimulus based built in self test(BIST) which can be used to get MEMS data and later this data can be used for statistical analysis. A capacitive MEMS accelerometer is considered to test this BIST approach. This BIST circuit overhead is less and utilizes most of the standard readout circuit. This thesis discusses accelerometer response for electrical stimulus and BIST architecture. As a part of this BIST circuit, a second order sigma delta modulator has been designed. This modulator has a sampling frequency of 1MHz and bandwidth of 6KHz. SNDR of 60dB is achieved with 1Vpp differential input signal and 3.3V supply
ContributorsKundur, Vinay (Author) / Bakkaloglu, Bertan (Committee member) / Ozev, Sule (Committee member) / Kiaei, Sayfe (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The applications which use MEMS accelerometer have been on rise and many new fields which are using the MEMS devices have been on rise. The industry is trying to reduce the cost of production of these MEMS devices. These devices are manufactured using micromachining and the interface circuitry is manufactured using CMOS and the final product is integrated on to a single chip. Amount spent on testing of the MEMS devices make up a considerable share of the total final cost of the device. In order to save the cost and time spent on testing, researchers have been trying to develop different methodologies. At present, MEMS devices are tested using mechanical stimuli to measure the device parameters and for calibration the device. This testing is necessary since the MEMS process is not a very well controlled process unlike CMOS. This is done using an ATE and the cost of using ATE (automatic testing equipment) contribute to 30-40% of the devices final cost. This thesis proposes an architecture which can use an Electrical Signal to stimulate the MEMS device and use the data from the MEMS response in approximating the calibration coefficients efficiently. As a proof of concept, we have designed a BIST (Built-in self-test) circuit for MEMS accelerometer. The BIST has an electrical stimulus generator, Capacitance-to-voltage converter, ∑ ∆ ADC. This thesis explains in detail the design of the Electrical stimulus generator. We have also designed a technique to correlate the parameters obtained from electrical stimuli to those obtained by mechanical stimuli. This method is cost effective since the additional circuitry needed to implement BIST is less since the technique utilizes most of the existing standard readout circuitry already present.
ContributorsJangala Naga, Naveen Sai (Author) / Ozev, Sule (Thesis advisor) / Bakkaloglu, Bertan (Committee member) / Kiaei, Sayfe (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Built-in-Self-Test (BiST) for transmitters is a desirable choice since it eliminates the reliance on expensive instrumentation to do RF signal analysis. Existing on-chip resources, such as power or envelope detectors, or small additional circuitry can be used for BiST purposes. However, due to limited bandwidth, measurement of complex specifications, such as IQ imbalance, is challenging. In this work, a BiST technique to compute transmitter IQ imbalances using measurements out of a self-mixing envelope detector is proposed. Both the linear and non linear parameters of the RF transmitter path are extracted successfully. We first derive an analytical expression for the output signal. Using this expression, we devise test signals to isolate the effects of gain and phase imbalance, DC offsets, time skews and system nonlinearity from other parameters of the system. Once isolated, these parameters are calculated easily with a few mathematical operations. Simulations and hardware measurements show that the technique can provide accurate characterization of IQ imbalances. One of the glaring advantages of this method is that, the impairments are extracted from analyzing the response at baseband frequency and thereby eliminating the need of high frequency ATE (Automated Test Equipment).
ContributorsByregowda, Srinath (Author) / Ozev, Sule (Thesis advisor) / Cao, Yu (Committee member) / Yu, Hongbin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
ABSTRACT Ongoing research into wireless transceivers in the 60 GHz band is required to address the demand for high data rate communications systems at a frequency where signal propagation is challenging even over short ranges. This thesis proposes a mixer architecture in Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology that uses a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) operating at a fractional multiple of the desired output signal. The proposed topology is different from conventional subharmonic mixing in that the oscillator phase generation circuitry usually required for such a circuit is unnecessary. Analysis and simulations are performed on the proposed mixer circuit in an IBM 90 nm RF process on a 1.2 V supply. A typical RF transmitter system is considered in determining the block requirements needed for the mixer to meet the IEEE 802.11ad 60 GHz Draft Physical Layer Specification. The proposed circuit has a conversion loss of 21 dB at 60 GHz with a 5 dBm LO power at 20 GHz. Input-referred third-order intercept point (IIP3) is 2.93 dBm. The gain and linearity of the proposed mixer are sufficient for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) modulation at 60 GHz with a transmitted data rate of over 4 Gbps.
ContributorsMartino, Todd Jeffrey (Author) / Kiaei, Sayfe (Thesis advisor) / Bakkaloglu, Bertan (Committee member) / Aberle, James T., 1961- (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
The world has seen a revolution in cellular communication with the advent of 5G, which enables gigabits per second data speed with low latency, massive capacity, and increased availability. Complex modulated signals are used in these moderncommunication systems to achieve high spectral efficiency, and these signals exhibit high peak to average power ratios (PAPR). Design of cellular infrastructure hardware to support these complex signals therefore becomes challenging, as the transmitter’s radio frequency power amplifier (RF PA) needs to remain highly efficient at both peak and backed off power conditions. Additionally, these PAs should exhibit high linearity and support continually increasing bandwidths. Many advanced PA configurations exhibit high efficiency for processing legacy communications signals. Some of the most popular architectures are Envelope Elimination and Restoration (EER), Envelope Tracking (ET), Linear Amplification using Non-linear Component (LINC), Doherty Power Amplifiers (DPA), and Polar Transmitters. Among these techniques,
the DPA is the most widely used architecture for base-station applications because of its simple configuration and ability to be linearized using simple digital pre-distortion (DPD) algorithms. To support the cellular infrastructure needs of 5G and beyond, RF PAs, specifically DPA architectures, must be further enhanced to support broader bandwidths as well as smaller form-factors with higher levels of integration. The following four novel works are presented in this dissertation to support RF PA requirements for future cellular infrastructure:
1. A mathematical analysis to analyze the effects of non-linear parasitic capacitance (Cds) on the operation of continuous class-F (CCF) mode power amplifiers and identify their optimum operating range for high power and efficiency.
2. A methodology to incorporate a class-J harmonic trapping network inside the PA package by considering the effect of non-linear Cds, thus reducing the DPA footprint while achieving high RF performance.
3. A novel method of synthesizing the DPA’s output combining network (OCN) to realize an integrated two-stage integrated LDMOS asymmetric DPA.
4. A novel extended back-off efficiency range DPA architecture that engineers the mutual interaction between combining load and peaking off-state impedance. The theory and architecture are verified through a GaN-based DPA design.
ContributorsAhmed, Maruf Newaz (Author) / Kitchen, Jennifer (Thesis advisor) / Aberle, James (Committee member) / Bakkaloglu, Bertan (Committee member) / Ozev, Sule (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
The continuing advancement of modulation standards with newer generations of cellular technology, promises ever increasing data rate and bandwidth efficiency. However, these modulation schemes present high peak to average power ratio (PAPR) even after applying crest factor reduction. Being the most power-hungry component in the radio frequency (RF) transmitter, power amplifiers (PA) for infrastructure applications, need to operate efficiently at the presence of these high PAPR signals while maintaining reasonable linearity performance which could be improved by moderate digital pre-distortion (DPD) techniques. This strict requirement of operating efficiently at average power level while being capable of delivering the peak power, made the load modulated PAs such as Doherty PA, Outphasing PA, various Envelope Tracking PAs, Polar transmitters and most recently the load modulated balanced PA, the prime candidates for such application. However, due to its simpler architecture and ability to deliver RF power efficiently with good linearity performance has made Doherty PA (DPA) the most popular solution and has been deployed almost exclusively for wireless infrastructure application all over the world.
Although DPAs has been very successful at amplifying the high PAPR signals, most recent advancements in cellular technology has opted for higher PAPR based signals at wider bandwidth. This lead to increased research and development work to innovate advanced Doherty architectures which are more efficient at back-off (BO) power levels compared to traditional DPAs. In this dissertation, three such advanced Doherty architectures and/or techniques are proposed to achieve high efficiency at further BO power level compared to traditional architecture using symmetrical devices for carrier and peaking PAs. Gallium Nitride (GaN) based high-electron-mobility (HEMT) technology has been used to design and fabricate the DPAs to validate the proposed advanced techniques for higher efficiency with good linearity performance at BO power levels.
Although DPAs has been very successful at amplifying the high PAPR signals, most recent advancements in cellular technology has opted for higher PAPR based signals at wider bandwidth. This lead to increased research and development work to innovate advanced Doherty architectures which are more efficient at back-off (BO) power levels compared to traditional DPAs. In this dissertation, three such advanced Doherty architectures and/or techniques are proposed to achieve high efficiency at further BO power level compared to traditional architecture using symmetrical devices for carrier and peaking PAs. Gallium Nitride (GaN) based high-electron-mobility (HEMT) technology has been used to design and fabricate the DPAs to validate the proposed advanced techniques for higher efficiency with good linearity performance at BO power levels.
ContributorsRuhul Hasin, Muhammad (Author) / Kitchen, Jennifer (Thesis advisor) / Aberle, James T., 1961- (Committee member) / Bakkaloglu, Bertan (Committee member) / Kiaei, Sayfe (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Testing and calibration constitute a significant part of the overall manufacturing cost of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) devices. Developing a low-cost testing and calibration scheme applicable at the user side that ensures the continuous reliability and accuracy is a crucial need. The main purpose of testing is to eliminate defective devices and to verify the qualifications of a product is met. The calibration process for capacitive MEMS devices, for the most part, entails the determination of the mechanical sensitivity. In this work, a physical-stimulus-free built-in-self-test (BIST) integrated circuit (IC) design characterizing the sensitivity of capacitive MEMS accelerometers is presented. The BIST circuity can extract the amplitude and phase response of the acceleration sensor's mechanics under electrical excitation within 0.55% of error with respect to its mechanical sensitivity under the physical stimulus. Sensitivity characterization is performed using a low computation complexity multivariate linear regression model. The BIST circuitry maximizes the use of existing analog and mixed-signal readout signal chain and the host processor core, without the need for computationally expensive Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)-based approaches. The BIST IC is designed and fabricated using the 0.18-µm CMOS technology. The sensor analog front-end and BIST circuitry are integrated with a three-axis, low-g capacitive MEMS accelerometer in a single hermetically sealed package. The BIST circuitry occupies 0.3 mm2 with a total readout IC area of 1.0 mm2 and consumes 8.9 mW during self-test operation.
ContributorsOzel, Muhlis Kenan (Author) / Bakkaloglu, Bertan (Thesis advisor) / Ozev, Sule (Thesis advisor) / Kiaei, Sayfe (Committee member) / Ogras, Umit Y. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017