Microwave and Millimetre-Wave Design for Wireless Communications

Ian Robertson, Nutapong Somjit, Mitchai Chongcheawchamnan

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781118917213
• eBook ISBN: 9781118917305
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Microwaves
• Index: Technology & Engineering

This book describes a full range of contemporary techniques for the design of transmitters and receivers for communications systems operating in the range from 1 through to 300 GHz. In this frequency range there is a wide range of technologies that need to be employed, with silicon ICs at the core but, compared with other electronics systems, a much greater use of more specialist devices and components for high performance – for example, high Q-factor/low loss and good power efficiency. Many text books do, of course, cover these topics but what makes this book timely is the rapid adoption of millimetre-waves (frequencies from 30 to 300 GHz) for a wide range of consumer applications such as wireless high definition TV, '5G' Gigabit mobile internet systems and automotive radars. It has taken many years to develop low-cost technologies for suitable transmitters and receivers, so previously these frequencies have been employed only in expensive military and space applications. The book will cover these modern technologies, with the follow topics covered; transmitters and receivers, lumped element filters, tranmission lines and S-parameters, RF MEMS, RFICs and MMICs, and many others.

In addition, the book includes extensive line diagrams to illustrate circuit diagrams and block diagrams of systems, including diagrams and photographs showing how circuits are implemented practically. Furthermore, case studies are also included to explain the salient features of a range of important wireless communications systems. The book is accompanied with suitable design examples and exercises based on the Advanced Design System – the industry leading CAD tool for wireless design.

More importantly, the authors have been working with Keysight Technologies on a learning & teaching initiative which is designed to promote access to industry-standard EDA tools such as ADS. Through its University Educational Support Program, Keysight offers students the opportunity to request a student license, backed up with extensive classroom materials and support resources. This culminates with students having the chance to demonstrate their RF/MW design and measurement expertise through the Keysight RF & Microwave Industry-Ready Student Certification Program.

www.keysight.com/find/eesof-university

www.keysight.com/find/eesof-student-certification

1
Introduction

The rapid convergence of wireless communications systems and digital media has been one of the most exciting developments in electronics during recent years. Increasingly, consumer electronics is the driving force behind technological advance, whereas in the past it was military and space projects. Consumer electronics has become the leading edge of technology because of the potentially huge sales volumes. As the market is extremely competitive, major global companies invest large sums in research and development in order to introduce new products with more features and better performance than their rivals. One of the biggest growth areas has been in mobile internet connectivity through smartphones and tablets, leading to a paradigm shift towards cloud computing, shown by the dramatic growth in mobile subscriptions and internet traffic. 5G heralds a new era in which wireless connectivity reaches everything, with the Internet of Things (IoT) creating a revolution in almost every facet of modern life, including healthcare, smart cities, energy, robotics, manufacturing, retail and the creative industries.

In the business of consumer electronics, it is well known that customers generally get (and, indeed, expect) more features for less money as technology advances. The key to this has been the continual and rapid development of silicon technology, allied with the globalisation of the electronics manufacturing business. By putting more transistors onto a single integrated circuit (IC), clearly a given product will require less ICs and less associated components on a circuit board. Gordon Moore, a cofounder of Intel, predicted in 1965 that the complexity of a chip could be expected to increase exponentially with time for a number of years [1]. This famous prediction has developed into Moore's Law, which is an empirical law that accurately charts technological progress in the microelectronics industry, with the number of transistors on a chip doubling every year. Figure 1.1 shows a graph charting this evolution of Intel microprocessor technology, re-plotted on a linear scale to show the dramatic development of computer technology, and illustrates that we have only recently entered the information age. The impressive milestone of two billion transistors on a chip was reached in 2008 [2].

Figure 1.1 Microprocessor transistor count versus year on a linear scale.

1.1 A Brief Timeline of Consumer Electronics

“We only recently entered the information age” is a bold claim that requires substantiation. A worthy method of investigating the claim is to briefly study the history of consumer electronics and develop a timeline of how the main audio, video and communications products have developed. Figure 1.2 shows a simplified timeline of some of the most important developments in communications, radio and television. The telegraph came first, with the Cooke and Wheatstone six-wire, five-needle system and the Morse code system being independently introduced in the 1830s in the UK and US, respectively. A number of pioneers had experimented with the speaking telegraph, and it was on 10th March 1876 that Alexander Graham Bell spoke the words “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you” to his assistant.

Figure 1.2 A simplified timeline of developments in consumer electronics.

After various pioneering efforts to record audio, including Thomas Edison's cylinder-based Phonograph, in 1887 Emile Berliner patented the disc-based machine (the Gramophone) that that is similar to what we know today. Broadcasting has its roots in Marconi's successful demonstration of radio communications across the Atlantic in 1901. Radio broadcasting became established during the 1920s, and TV started appearing shortly after John Logie Baird's demonstration of an electromechanical television in 1926. In 1928, American inventor Philo Taylor Farnsworth gave the first public demonstration of an all-electronic scanning television system [3]. He was awarded a string of patents, which he later licensed to RCA, which became a giant in the world of TV and radio. The 1950s, 1960s and 1970s witnessed an extensive development of colour television and recording, and the first portable audio products.

The mobile telephone has its origins in Motorola's radiotelephone of 1946. The first automated cellular systems were NTT's in Tokyo in 1979 and the NMT network introduced in Sweden and Norway in 1981. The AMPS system was introduced in the USA in 1983 and the DynaTAC handheld cellular phone was introduced by Motorola, considered to be the first ever handheld phone and now recognisable instantly as the “brick phone”. GSM phones were introduced in 1991 – a digital system with greatly enhanced speech quality. Although personal computers were available about a decade before, GSM phones were one of the first consumer products that used digital electronics to perform real-time processing of signals. The 1990s can therefore be considered (debatably) the start of the digital consumer product revolution, with the DVD player (1996) and portable MP3 player (1998) appearing in the same decade. The iPhone was launched in 2007 and, in the short time since, smartphones and tablets have become an almost indispensable part of modern living, being most people's main portal to the internet, with awesome functionality that includes multi-band cellular and internet connectivity, voice-directed navigation, multimedia playback, games, augmented reality, and so on.

1.2 The Electromagnetic Spectrum

Electromagnetic waves are vital to almost all communications systems and modern consumer products. Radio waves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet (UV) radiation and X-rays are all forms of the same phenomenon of electromagnetic wave propagation. Some of the most important frequency bands and applications of the electromagnetic spectrum are shown in Figure 1.3. This is, once again, on a logarithmic scale: X-rays have a frequency around a billion times the frequency of a mobile phone radio signal. Of course, not all these frequencies can be generated easily (if at all) by conventional transistor-based electronics. High-power microwaves, for example, are generated in a magnetron for some applications. Light, for optical storage and communications, is generated by a laser.

Figure 1.3 Frequency, wavelength and terminology for various applications of electromagnetic waves.

Some of the most common frequencies and applications are listed in Table 1.1. Wavelength (λ) is inversely proportional to frequency and, assuming free space propagation, the relationship c = f λ can be used, where c is the speed of light in vacuo (3 × 10⁸ m s⁻¹). For radio waves, the wavelength is large and the macro effects of electromagnetism and wave propagation readily apply. At the other extreme, light has a typical wavelength of <1 μm and quantum effects start to become important: In other words, the packet nature of light – the existence of photons – must be taken into account.

Table 1.1 Example frequencies of some common systems.

Frequency	Application
0.5 to 2.6 MHz	Medium wave AM radio band
220 MHz	Digital audio broadcasting
500–850 MHz	UHF TV band
850, 900 MHz and 1.8, 1.9 GHz	GSM mobile (cell) phones
2.2 GHz	3G mobile phones
2.45 GHz	Microwave ovens, Bluetooth, 802.11b/g/n wireless LANs
10 GHz	Military radar
11–12 GHz	European satellite TV
60 GHz	802.11ad gigabit wireless LANs
77 GHz	Cruise control in some cars
198 THz	Long-distance fibre communications
333 THz	TV infra-red remote control
430 THz	Red light
1 million THz	X-rays in hospital

Radio transmission is used for hundreds of applications, and modern society could not exist without these radiofrequency (RF) systems. The frequency bands ranging from 100 kHz up to 100 GHz (100 000 MHz) are already extensively used for radio, TV, mobile telephones and the cellular network infrastructure, Wi-Fi, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• About the Authors
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Transmitters and Receivers
• 3 Scattering Parameters
• 4 Lumped-Element Filters
• 5 Transmission Line Theory
• 6 Transmission Line Components
• 7 Transmission Line Filters
• 8 Semiconductor Devices
• 9 Impedance Matching
• 10 Amplifiers
• 11 Oscillators
• 12 Mixers and Modulators
• 13 RF MEMS
• 14 Antennas and Propagation
• 15 Digital Signal Processing for Transceivers
• 16 Packaging and Assembly
• 17 Electronic Design Automation
• 18 Measurement Techniques
• Glossary
• Index
• EULA