ITRS: RF and Analog/MixedSignal Technologies for Wireless

Communications

Nick Krajewski
CMPE 640
11/16/2005

Introduction
4

Working Groups within Wireless

Analog

and Mixed Signal (0.8 10 GHz) (Covered today)

RF Transceivers (0.8 10 GHz) (Covered today)
Power Amplifiers and Power Management (0.8 10GHz)
Millimeter Wave (10-100GHz)
PAs

and Power Management and Millimeter Wave

to be covered by Chandra on 11/30.

Analog and Mixed Signal: Scope

1)

Analog speed devices (although the speed is mainly

driven by RF there are certain analog-specific needs for
both high speed bipolar and CMOS)
2) Analog precision MOS device scaling but with
relatively high voltages to achieve high signal to noise
ratios and low signal distortion
3) Capacitors, and resistors; all devices are optimized for
precision, matching performance, 1/f noise, low nonlinearity, and low temperature gradients.

Analog and Mixed Signal:

Difficult Challenges
Signal

isolation between digital and analog regions of the chip.

Integrating analog and high-performance digital functions on a
chip (scaling). Difficult to maintain analog performance
parameters (mismatch and 1/fnoise together with new high- gate
dielectrics). Transition to analog supply voltage of less than 1.8V.
Integration of analog functions in digital CMOS (depending on
new materials or device structures added to digital CMOS
process). Problems include SOI, double-gate devices and
changes in material choices for passive devices. Transition to
analog supply voltage of less than 1.0V.

Analog and Mixed Signal:

Technology Requirements
2005
DRAM Pitch (nm)
80
Digital Supply
1.2
Voltage (V)
Analog Supply
Voltage (V)

2006
70
1.2

2007
65
1.1

2008
57
1.1

2009
50
1.1

2.51.8 2.51.8 2.51.8 2.51.8 2.51.8

Analog and Mixed Signal:

Potential Solutions
SOI

and SIP (combines circuits on different

technologies and is optimized for desired
functions)
On-chip passive components
Device matching
Integrated shielding structures

Analog and Mixed Signal: 2004

Updates
Technology

requirements aligned for analog

devices with Low Standby Power (LSTP)
roadmap instead of Low Operating Power (LOP)
roadmap.
Challenges for reducing 1/f noise in high-k
dielectrics relaxed to color coding of yellow from
red.

RF Transceivers: Scope
Process

technologies CMOS and Si or SiGe

BiCMOS.
Applications low noise amplifiers (LNAs),
frequency synthesis and logic, voltage controlled
oscillators, driver amplifiers, and filters.
Devices include NPN bipolar transistors, RFMOS (NMOS) field effect transistors, inductors,
varactors, RF capacitors, and resistors.

RF Transceivers: Scope contd

Primary

metrics for performance are max

frequency at unity current gain (max Ft), max
frequency at unity power gain (Fmax), noise
figure, and trade-offs among power, noise, and
linearity.

Assumes

frequency is 800 MHz to 10 GHz range.

Covers GSM, CDMA, Wideband CDMA, 802.11 protocol
for local area networks, and ultra wideband (UWB).

RF Transceivers: Scope contd

RF

transceiver refers to the semiconductor content

starting from the low noise amplifier (LNA) or power
amplifier (PA) at the antenna end (including the LNA but
not including the PA that is covered by the PA section) to
the digital-to-analog converter/analog-to-digital converter
(DAC/ADC) at the baseband end (not including the DAC
or ADC that are covered by the mixed-signal section).

RF Transceivers: Difficult
Challenges
Aggressive

scaling of passive elements

(capacitors and inductors)
Reducing cost of BiCMOS technology while
improving power and performance, and improving
performance of RF-CMOS devices
Signal isolation
Improving the performance (Ft and Fmax) of
active devices (long term)

RF Transceivers: Technology
Requirements
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
DRAM Pitch (nm)
NPN
Vcc (V)
Peak Ft (GHz)
Peak Fmax (GHz)
NMOS
Vdd (V)
Peak Ft (GHz)
Peak Fmax (GHz)

80

70

65

57

50

1.8
198
239

1.8
228
256

1.5
262
295

1.5
302
330

1.5
347
387

1.3
140

1.3
170

1.2
200

1.2
240

1.1
280

160

190

220

260

310

RF Transceivers: Potential
Solutions
Improve

Ft up to 300 GHz vertical and lateral scaling

Improve Ft above 300 GHz atomic layer epitaxy
Laterally diffused channels to improve performance of
high voltage devices
Metal gates
For MIM capacitors high-k dielectrics
For inductors thicker layers of Cu and thicker top
dielectrics

RF Transceivers: 2004 Updates

Similar

to Near Term Table, lag between Radio

Frequency (RF) CMOS gate length and BiCMOS
gate length occurs in Long Term Table.
RFCMOS: technology requirements maintained 1
year lag from LSTP roadmap.

Questions?