The design of a subharmonic downconverter for 94-GHz imaging arrays in SiGe:C technology is presented. A three-stage differential low-noise amplifier (LNA) with lumped matching networks is used together with a subharmonic mixer driven by a single-pole local-oscillator poly-phase network to form the front-end. The LNA yields 15 dB gain at 94 GHz, while the mixer provides 5 dB conversion gain over a

Amplifiers for the next generation of T/R modules in future active array antennas are realized as monolithically integrated circuits (MMIC) on the basis of novel AlGaN/GaN (is a chemical material description) high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) structures. Both low-noise and power amplifiers are designed for X-band frequencies. The MMICs are designed, simulated, and fabricated using a novel v

In millimeter-wave CMOS circuits, a balun is useful for connecting off-chip single-end devices and on-chip differential circuits to improve noise immunity. However, an on-chip balun occupies a large chip area. To reduce the chip area required for the on-chip balun, a new rat-race balun using a rewiring technology with a wafer-level chip-size package (W-CSP) is proposed. The W-CSP balun occupies no

The rate of signal transmission on or between monolithic integrated circuits is limited by the cross-talk and the dispersion due to the wired interconnects. The bandwidth limitations can be overcome by wireless chip-to-chip and on-chip interconnects via integrated antennas. In this work the utilization of the electronic circuit ground planes as radiating elements for the integrated antennas has be

An L-band frequency and rejection-level tunable SiGe HBT differential amplifier with dual stopband is presented. To achieve frequency and rejection-level tunable performance, dual LCR-tank circuit with an active load is incorporated into the design of the series feedback loops of the differential amplifier. The active load consists of a varactor diode represented as a variable and a common-emitte

This paper presents a new planar particle that shows negative effective permittivity under irradiation by an electromagnetic wave. The mutual coupling between the couples of these particles is studied in particular. The response of this particle sensitive to an electric field is strongly anisotropic. The particle is aimed to be used to compose an isotropic epsilon-negative metamaterial in two form

In the framework of the Top Amplifier Research Groups in a European Team (TARGET) project, we developed a new electrical method for the temperature measurement of HEMTs and performed several unique studies on the self-heating effects in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs. This method, in combination with transient interferometric mapping (TIM), provides a fundamental understanding of the heat propagation in a transi

This paper presents a study of losses in substrate-integrated waveguides (SIWs) and cavities. Three mechanisms of losses are considered and separately investigated, namely radiation leakage, ohmic loss, and dielectric loss. A systematic comparison of waveguides with different geometry, operating at different frequencies, is reported. This study permits to give a physical interpretation of the loss

This article describes the design and performance of a compact tunable impedance transformer. The structure is based on a transmission line loaded by varactor diodes. Using only two pairs of diodes, the circuit is very small with a total length of only /10. Both the frequency range and the load impedance can be tuned by varying the varactor bias voltages. Our design provides a tunable operating fr

Traveling wave amplifiers (TWAs) offer the advantage of broadband amplification and a closed set of equations that allow deriving the RF gain by means of treating TWAs as discrete transmission line approximations. Up to now, however, the significant losses associated with CMOS integrated inductors have been neglected. This work presents a new approach for determining the transmission line losses a

This paper discusses on the miniaturization of radiofrequency (RF) front-end components such as half-wavelength resonators based on new magneto-dielectric heterostructures combining high permeability (µ = 150?250) and high permittivity (? = 18?150). Size reduction is evaluated by means of 2-cm-long coplanar waveguides realized with silicon technology and having a resonance frequency of about 3 GHz

A new model of two-access reconfigurable antennas for future mobile communication systems is presented in this article. This structure is based on a slot antenna with two separated access ports, isolated and matched at 1 and 2 GHz, respectively. The novelty of this element lies in the fact that first a filtering structure is integrated in the antenna, and then any additional switching or frequency

This paper deals with the various aspects of electromagnetic field impact modeling on the SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) device for microwave applications. This study differs from conventional HBT device reliability research associated with other stresses. The originality of this study comes from the generation of a localized electromagnetic field using the near-field bench. A coupli

A high impedance surface (HIS) consisting of metallic square patches electrically connected one to each other with resistors is shown. Tunability of the absorption factor is achieved by the resistor value. The absorbing band of the loaded HIS is determined by the phase of the signal reflected by this structure. The main contribution of the paper is to demonstrate the absorption behavior over a wid

This paper presents measurement results providing the mapping of the opto-microwave transfer function performed on an SiGe microwave heterojunction phototransistor (HPT). This measurements will be used to extract a guideline for designing phototransistors. A mapping of the HPT's gain in low frequency helps to estimate the shape of the optical beam used for the measurement. The study also focuses o

This paper presents a behavioral electrothermal model implementation for high RF power amplifiers dedicated to the simulation of radar application in the Scilab/Scicos environment. This model, based on the direct coupling between a behavioral electrical model and a physics-based reduced thermal model, allows to predict nonlinear effects, high-frequency memory effects, and thermal effects due to th

This paper presents an original biosensor chip allowing determination of intrinsic relative permittivity of biological cells at microwave frequencies. This sensor permits non-invasive cell identification and discrimination using an RF signal to probe intracellular medium of biological samples. Indeed, these sensors use an RF planar resonator that allows detection capabilities on less than 10 cells

Extensive simulation experiments are carried out for the first time, to study the optical modulation of the high- frequency characteristics of III?V GaN-(gallium nitride) based top-mounted and flip-chip IMPact Avalanche Transit Time (IMPATT) oscillators at MM-wave window frequency (140.0 GHz). It is found that the un-illuminated GaN IMPATT is capable of delivering a RF power of 5.6 W with an effic

Performance comparison is made between on-chip spiral inductor in flip-chip versus wirebond package technology. Full-wave electromagnetic simulation and on-strip measurement techniques were used to study the performance fluctuations of inductor within flip-chip environment. Results show that the performance of a flipped silicon-based spiral inductor is affected by the radio frequency (RF) current

A 2.4 GHz CMOS blocker filtering low-noise amplifier (BF-LNA) suitable for Bluetooth? application is presented. The circuit employs a differential amplifier topology with a current mirror active load and a notch filter. Each path amplifies differentially with the common mode input signal, but there is a notch filter rejecting only the wanted signal at one path. By subtracting the two signals from