Digitally assisted analog electronics trade offs and applications on mixed signal and RF front ends

135 Pages·2017·4.99 MB·English

by  Botao Xiong

Digitally Assisted Analog Electronics :
Trade-offs and Applications on Mixed Signal
and RF Front-ends
Vom Fachbereich 18
Elektro- und Informationstechnik Institut fu¨r Datentechnik
der Technischen Universita¨t Darmstadt
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines
Doktor-Ingenieurs (Dr.-Ing.)
genehmigte Dissertation
von
M.Sc.
Botao Xiong
geboren am 06. March 1987
in Gansu, China
Referent: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Klaus Hofmann
Technische Universita¨t Darmstadt
Korreferent: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Hollstein
Tallinn University of Technology
Tag der Einreichung: 23.01.2017
Tag der mu¨ndlichen Pru¨fung: 08.05.2017
D17
Darmsta¨dter Dissertationen 2017
Copyright©2017
IntegratedElectronicSystemsLab
TechnischeUniversita¨tDarmstadt
Merckstr.25,D-64283Darmstadt,Germany
Digitally Assisted Analog Electronics :
Trade-offs and Applications on Mixed Signal
and RF Front-ends
Vom Fachbereich 18
Elektro- und Informationstechnik Institut fu¨r Datentechnik
der Technischen Universita¨t Darmstadt
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines
Doktor-Ingenieurs (Dr.-Ing.)
genehmigte Dissertation
von
M.Sc.
Botao Xiong
geboren am 06. March 1987
in Gansu, China
Referent: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Klaus Hofmann
Technische Universita¨t Darmstadt
Korreferent: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Hollstein
Tallinn University of Technology
Tag der Einreichung: 23.01.2017
Tag der mu¨ndlichen Pru¨fung: 08.05.2017
D17
Darmsta¨dter Dissertationen 2017
4
Erkla¨rung zur Dissertation
Hiermitversichereich,dievorliegendeDissertationohneHilfeDritternurmitdenangegebe-
nen Quellen und Hilfsmitteln angefertigt zu haben. Alle Stellen, die aus Quellen ent-
nommen wurden, sind als solche kenntlich gemacht. Diese Arbeit hat in gleicher oder
a¨hnlicherFormnochkeinerPru¨fungsbeho¨rdevorgelegen.
Darmstadt,den
(BotaoXiong)
v

Acknowledgment
This dissertation is based on my work that I have started in Oct 2012 at integrated elec-
tronicsystemlab,TUDarmstadtasafour-yearscholarshipstudent.
First and foremost, I want to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor Prof Hof-
mann for his advice, guidance, patience and providing me with excellent working envi-
ronment. Without his supervision and constant help, this dissertation would not have
beenpossible.
IwouldalsoliketothankallmycolleaguesinIESlab. Iwanttoexpressmygratitude
to Roland Brand and Andreas Schmidt for their technical support; Lufei Shen, Jing Ning
and Muhammad Bilal Saif for sharing their knowledge of circuit design; Donghang Lv
and Erick Gonzalez Rodriguez for sharing their knowledge of microwave technology;
SilviaHermann,XiangDing,HaoyuanYing,FangYuanandotherfriendsfortheirkindly
helpinmyworkandpersonallife.
Lastbutnottheleast,Iwouldliketodedicatethisdissertationtomyparentsfortheir
love, understanding and selfless support in all my pursuits. Without your help in my
personallife,Icouldnotfocusonmystudyandresearch. Thankyou.
Darmstadt,Jun2016
BotaoXiong
vii
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Abstract
The development of integrated circuits has been governed by Moore(cid:48)s law for several
decades. ThroughcontinuousadvancementsinCMOStechnology,theindustryhasmain-
tained exponential progress rates in transistor miniaturization and integration density.
However, this technology scaling trend is only conditionally beneficial for analog circuit
performance. Comparedwiththeanalogcircuits,digitalcircuitsarecheaper,faster,more
complex, and more power efficient. Due to these reasons, the researchers are undertak-
ing a paradigm shift from high performance analog circuits to digitally assisted analog
circuits.
Adaptive impedance matching techniques are attractive because they provide resilience
to antenna impedance variation caused by body-effects and several other reasons. In
principle,theycanpreservemaximumradiatedpower,poweramplifierlinearity,receiver
sensitivity, and power efficiency of a mobile phone simultaneously. However, achieving
properadaptiveimpedancecontroloveralargeimpedanceregionisachallenge.
Recent analog and RF circuits are increasing performance and efficiency with the aid of
digital technology. To apply this technique to a reconfigurable antenna system, a fully
integrated micro-controller based on AMS H35 technology has been designed. Digital
calibration blocks wrapped around an analog core are capable of performing dead time
and impedance matching schemes. Therefore, the intelligence and robustness of the sys-
tem are improved significantly. Furthermore, compared with S11 controller (18.8mm2,
186mW),thesiliconareaofthedigitallyassistedcircuit(4mm2,62mW)isacceptable.
In addition, this dissertation presents a set of convergence criteria for the tunable match-
ingnetwork,whichleadstothefindingofmatchingpointwithhighprobability. Further-
more, to accelerate the convergence speed, the binary search tuning algorithm has been
proposed. Incontrasttothesinglestepmethod,thetuningspeedisimprovedfromO(N)
toO(log(N)).
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