June 19-23, 2023

Registration deadline: May 19, 2023
Payment deadline: June 9, 2023

Downloard one-page schedule here

Course material will be distributed only if fees have been paid by the deadline for payment.

MONDAY, June 19

TUESDAY, June 20

WEDNESDAY, June 21

THURSDAY, June 22

FRIDAY, June 23

Advanced RF IC Design
June 19-23, 2023
EPFL Premises, Lausanne, Switzerland

RF Fundamentals and Transceivers
Behzad Razavi, UCLA, USA

This lecture builds the foundation necessary for the overall course. We begin with the effect of nonlinearity and noise and describe quantitative measures that represent these phenomena in RF design. Examples include distortion, compression,  desensitization, intermodulation, and noise in receiver design. Next, we turn to classic transceiver architectures and focus on those that have stood the test of time and still find wide application from WiFi and cellular to millimeter-wave radios.

LNA and Mixer Design
Behzad Razavi, UCLA, USA

This lecture deals with the transistor-level design of LNA and mixers for a variety of radio standards. We begin with the performance metrics of these circuits and analyze several narrowband and broadband topologies along with their pros and cons. We also present a step-by-step procedure for the design of these building blocks and describe examples that target a certain performance.

Modern Direct-Conversion Receivers
Behzad Razavi, UCLA, USA

As the most popular receiver architecture for integration, direct conversion has evolved considerably over the past two decades. A salient attribute in this evolution is the ability to provide blocker tolerance by means of current-domain processing and N-path filters. This lecture delves into such concepts and describes architectures thus created.

New Developments in Transceiver Design
Behzad Razavi, UCLA, USA

As radios aim for higher performance and embrace greater complexity, designers must inevitably innovate. Recent transceivers incorporate new architecture and circuit techniques that dramatically improve the performance. We present a number of examples of the state of the art to showcase these developments. Examples include receivers with noise cancellation and transmitters with high linearity.

Transistor-Level Design of a 2.4-GHz/5.2-GHz WiFi Receiver
Behzad Razavi, UCLA, USA

This lecture begins with WiFi radio specifications and shows how they translate to required circuit performance. We then design each building block and form the entire receive chain. Extensive circuit simulations are used to quantify the trade-offs governing the overall system.

Case Study of a 6-GHz Receiver for WiFi and LTE
Behzad Razavi, UCLA, USA

The demand for accommodating a greater number of bands and standards in mobile devices continues to challenge RF designers. This lecture presents a CMOS receiver operating from 400 MHz to 6 GHz and meeting the exacting demands of both WiFi and LTE radios. We describe the evolution of the architecture and demonstrate methods of easing noise-linearity trade-offs and improving harmonic rejection.

mm-Wave VCO Design
Behzad Razavi, UCLA, USA

The design of VCOs must deal with trade-offs among the center frequency, phase noise, power consumption, and tuning range. We introduce a number of VCO topologies, analyze their phase noise behavior, and consider several specific designs. Next, we extend these concepts to the millimeter-wave range and present a step-by-step procedure for the design of a VCO operating around 30 GHz.

mm-Wave CMOS Circuit Design
Patrick Reynaert, KU Leuven, Belgium

This lecture will discuss MOS transistor behaviour and performance at mm-wave frequencies, including optimization of layout and parasitics, layout optimization to minimize parasitic interconnects, stability considerations and capacitive neutralization. Also included is a comparison between bulk CMOS, FDSOI and Finfet, a discussion on passive components, both lumped and transmission-line based, layout consideration of inductors and transformers at mm-wave frequencies, shielding and maximizing quality factors of passives.

mm-Wave CMOS Circuit Design Examples With Transformers
Patrick Reynaert, KU Leuven, Belgium

Discussion on transformer-based matching techniques. Imbalance and common-mode coupling in transformer-based circuits. Design examples of mm-wave MOS circuits such as LNA, VCO, amplifiers will be discussed in greater detail.

CMOS mm-wave PA Design
Patrick Reynaert, KU Leuven, Belgium

These lectures start with a system-level overview of PA specifications and how they become circuit-challenges. Based on this analysis, design trade-offs for >60GHz PA design in bulk CMOS, FDSOI and Finfet are covered. Many practical examples will be discussed, covering 65nm CMOS down to 16nm Finfet. Topics such as broadband matching, power combining and minimizing AM-PM distortion will be covered in greater detail.

Common Design-Errors and Layout Mistakes at mm-Wave Frequencies
Patrick Reynaert, KU Leuven, Belgium

This lecture will cover a variety of topics, such as layout of bias and ground connections, importance of bypass capacitors and their influence on common-mode oscillations and sstability verification techniques. At the end, some unexpected measurement results are explained.

Fundamentals of Beamforming for 5G and SATCOM (I)
Hua Wang, ETHZ, Switzerland

This lecture will review the basic principles of phased array beamforming and non-idealities. The basic analog/digital/hybrid beamforming architectures and advanced beamforming architectures will be introduced. Different MIMO structures will be covered as well. Next, we will focus on the array system requirements for mm-Wave 5G FR2 bands for both mobile and infrastructure applications. Several basic mm-Wave array design examples for 5G wireless communication applications will be presented.

Fundamentals of Beamforming for 5G and SATCOM (II)
Hua Wang, ETHZ, Switzerland

This lecture will review the array principle with an emphasis on satellite communication (SATCOM) and radar applications. We will focus on the array system requirements for SATCOM applications, such as antenna noise temperature, G/T ratio, and array tapering, etc. Next, we will study array systems for radars, such as radar MIMOs, synthetic aperture radar, and interferometric radars. Several basic mm-Wave array design examples for SATCOM and radar applications will be presented.

5G mm-Wave Transmitter Array Design Examples
Hua Wang, ETHZ, Switzerland

This lecture will cover the design considerations with a particular emphasis on transmitter arrays. The antenna active impedance and load variations due to antenna coupling will be introduced. On-chip power and impedance sensors for built-in-self-testing (BiST) will be presented. Thermal considerations and thermal modeling for mm-Wave transmitter array designs will be covered as well. We will have an in-depth study on a mm-Wave transmitter array with details.

5G Digital Power Amplifiers and Transmitters
Hua Wang, ETHZ, Switzerland

This lecture will introduce digital power amplifiers and RF power DACs as well as digital transmitters. The basic operation principals and different digital power cell types will be first introduced. Linearization techniques for digital power cells will be covered. Next, from signal construction perspective, polar, quadrature, and multi-phase architectures will be presented. Then, from efficiency enhancement perspective, different types of digital transmitters, in particular digital Doherty transmitters will be studied. We will present multiple digital transmitter designs including a mm-Wave mixed-signal Doherty transmitter to radically extend the dynamic range and linearity.