Title: Design and Development of D-band Low Noise Amplifier for Military and Surveillance Applications

Block diagram:  

Block diagram is attached

schematics of the critical circuit core:

Schematics are attached

Target performance summary table:

The proposed design of LNA is targeted to the following specifications.

1. Operating frequency : 140GHz
2. Noise Figure             : 15dB
3. Power Gain                         : 10dB to 11 dB
4. Input Return loss (S11) :   < -10 dB
5. Output return loss (S22) : <-10 dB

The major steps in this work plan are 

• Defining the specifications of the proposed LNA design.
• Preparation of schematic for the defined target specifications which includes the choice of layers and circuit design with necessary parameters.
• Simulation is to be done to verify the functionality of the design and to generate the netlist of the design.
• The layout of the simulated design and parasitic extraction is carried out
• Electro Magnetic Co-Simulation is performed to estimate the cross-talk between the multiple layers in the layout and emulate the interference in real-time. This is very crucial for calculating the performance of a system under a real-time environment.

Finally, the Graphic Database System (GDS) file will be created and this can be used for IC fabrication.

Short description of the circuit and your specific design goals:

       Following are the different stages to consider in developing the proposed design.

Choice of devices and bias circuit design:

The research initially starts with selecting the best device/transistor to define the amplifier topology which best suits the design requirements. As this is a high-frequency design, the parameters like scattering and Maximum Available Gain to considered carefully. These parameters allow a first feasibility analysis of the design with a specific transistor. Then the bias operating point is to be chosen to ensure that to maintain the isolation of the RF stage. Current mirror technique will be used in determining bias operating point.

Evaluating of Stability, Maximum Available Gain, S-parameters and Noise Figure:

The conditions of stability of the transistor will be taken care in this stage to avoid possible oscillations. Then, the selection process of the operating point will starts according to the intersection between the constant gain circles and the noise figure circles, with better S-parameters to find out the points at which they are best satisfied with required specifications. The systematic analysis of the design requirements is carried out in terms of impedance matching at the input and output of the amplifier. After this, the values of the reflection coefficients at the input and the output will be considered to design LNA with their corresponding input and output matching couplers.

Simulation and Layout design  of LNA

The designed LNA architectures will be simulated to verify its functionality and later will be analyzed using Layout and parasitic extractions. EM simulation of LNA will be carried out for final LNA architecture design to verify all required parametric analysis and also, co-simulation of the schematic with the EM response will be carried out. To achieve the required gain cascading may be done based on the obtained results.

The expected outcome of the research

1. This work finds a feasaible solution to problems facing by Military and Surveillance by offering cost-effective remote security services.
2. The proposed design of LNA at millimeter-wave have the applications in radio astronomy, remote sensing, spaceborne communications, short-range high-capacity links, earth science, radar, imaging, vehicle guidance, and security.

Technical novelty and utility

• It was observed that the present research in India is at a very early stage in D- Band. It could be because of development overhead and lack of skilled manpower. So we, as an academic institute, with research orientation see a unique advantage in taking up this challenging task.
• Till now, most of the receiver systems built not beyond 60 GHz (5G Communication) frequency. The project aimed to design an LNA at 140GHz frequency, this being a very new frequency band in India left unexplored. So, the proposed project itself is unique with respect to frequency.
• The design will have less power dissipation compared with other designs.
• As the wavelength is very low, So the size of the system is very small.
• Higher bandwidths can be achieved without much difficulty.
• For Military applications, the size of the system is very important. RFIC gives very small form factor to the system.

References:

• Rainer Weber, Hermann Massler and Arnulf Leuther, “D-Band Low-Noise Amplifier MMIC with 50 % Bandwidth and 3.0 dB Noise Figure in 100 nm and 50 nm mHEMT Technology, IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium (IMS), 756-759,June, 2017.
• B. Yishay, E. Shumaker and D. Elad, “A 122-150 GHz LNA with 30 dB Gain and 6.2 dB Noise Figure in SiGe BiCMOS Technology”, IEEE Silicon Monolithic Integrated Circuits in RF Systems (SiRF), pp. 15-17, Jan. 2015.
• Moschetti, A. Leuther, H. Massler, B. Aja, M. Rösch, M. Schlechtweg, O. Ambacher, V. Kangas, M. Geneviève-Perichaud “A 183 GHz Metamorphic HEMT Low-Noise Amplifier with 3.5 dB Noise Figure,” IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters, vol. 25, no. 9 pp. 618-620, Sep. 2015.
• Çagri Ulusoy, Peter Song, Wasif T. Khan, Mehmet Kaynak, Bernd Tillack, John Papapolymerou, and John D. Cressler, “ A SiGe D-Band Low-Noise Amplifier Utilizing Gain-Boosting Technique”  IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components letters, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp.61-63,January, 2015.
• Alex Bessemoulin, Jabra Tarazi , MacCrae G. McCulloch and Simon J. Mahon , “0.1-µm GaAs PHEMT W-band low noise amplifier MMIC using coplanar waveguide technology”1^st Australian Microwave Symposium (AMS),pp. 249-256,2014.
• P. Bhale and U. D. Dalal, “Design and Optimization of CMOS 0.18µm Low Noise Amplifier for Wireless Applications”, International Journal of Information and Electronics Engineering, Vol. 4, No. 2,pp.92-97,2014.
• Wang Yawei and Yu Weihua, “Design and simulation of a W-band broadband Low Noise Amplifier” IEEE international conference on microwave technology & computational electromagnetics,pp.345-349,
• Patricia V. Larkoski, Pekka Kangaslahti, Lorene Samoska, Richard Lai, Stephen Sarkozy, Sarah E. Church, “Low Noise Amplifiers for 140 GHz Wide-Band Cryogenic Receivers” IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium Digest (MTT), pp.1-4,2013.
• Vaithianathan, J. Raja and R. Srinivasan, “A low power, high gain, low noise amplifier with improved noise figure and input matching for ultra-wide band applications”, IJST, transactions of Electrical Engineering, Vol. 36, No. E2, pp.163-174, Printed in The Islamic Republic of Iran, 2012.
• Ravinder Kumar, Munish Kumar, and Viranjay M. Srivastava, “Design and Noise Optimization of RF Low Noise Amplifier for IEEE Standard 802.11A WLAN”, International Journal of VLSI design & Communication Systems (VLSICS), Vol.3, No.2, pp. 165-173,April, 2012.