W-Band Transistor Device Modelling and Power Amplifier Design

Abstract

Power Amplifiers are one of the most important circuits found in transmitter circuits in all wireless communications from cellular phones to base station transceivers. In the last 30 years, interest in the design of these amplifiers operating at millimetre-wave frequencies for use in high data rate electronic systems especially in next-generation 5G base station transceivers has grown. They can also be used as driver amplifiers in the next generation Wideband High-Frequency Measurement equipment like Performance Network Analysers (PNA-X) manufactured by Keysight Technologies with relatively low cost, low power consumption and high reliability. On top of that, their use in E-band wireless communications will become important as the microwave backhaul for high-speed data transmission is continually being overloaded due to state of the art LTE networks. These legacy microwave links are increasingly being replaced by millimetre-wave communication links hence the need for millimetre-wave power amplifiers. This project will develop the Barigye-Manchester(B_M) high frequency model based on the EE_HEMT non-linear device model coupled with an extrinsic circuit model for the power pseudomorphic High Electron Mobility Transistor (pHEMT) fabricated on the 0.1 um gate length AlGaAs/GaAs 50 um substrate thickness WIN PP1010 process from WIN Semiconductors to account for the underestimation in the output reflection coefficient (S22) of the device and hence will adequately model the device beyond 50 GHz. The DC-IV, capacitance and S-parameter data for this model will be validated with its corresponding data for its linear based 2x25 um model. Using the Barigye-Manchester(B_M) model and a scaling ratio, the DC-IV and S-Parameter data for a Barigye-Manchester(B_M) 2x12 um transistor model that will be validated with its corresponding measured 2x12 um transistor device data was obtained. The development of this Barigye-Manchester(B_M) model will be carried out in terms of parameter extraction and model matching using the Integrated Circuit Characterization and Analysis Program (IC-CAP) software package from Keysight Technologies. The Barigye-Manchester (B_M) 2x25 um WIN transistor model which will be fully integrable into Keysight's Advanced Design System (ADS) circuit simulator will be used to design a 92-96 GHz power amplifier and a 60-80 GHz cascode power amplifier. Finally, the design of a W-Band monolithic hybrid singly balanced Image Reject Mixer (IRM) implementing a Schottky diode to convert an IF signal of 5.4 GHz with an LO signal at 86.6-90.6 GHz to obtain an RF signal of 92-96 GHz that will be amplified by the 92-96 GHz power amplifier fabricated on the 0.1 um gate length InGaAs pHEMT process of a 50 um substrate thickness from WIN Semiconductors will be described.

Date of Award	31 Dec 2018
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Robin Sloan (Supervisor) & Laith Danoon (Supervisor)