Week 1: June 23-27, 2025

Week 2: June 30 – July 4, 2025

Registration deadline: June 9, 2025
Payment deadline: June 13, 2025

TEACHING HOURS

Monday, June 23

Tuesday, June 24

Wednesday, June 25

Thursday, June 26

Friday, June 27

Monday, June 30

Tuesday, July 1

Wednesday, June 2

Thursday, June 3

Friday, June 4

Basics in RF Design
On-Line Class
May 8-19, 2023

Building Blocks and Sub System for Wireless Transceivers (8 modules)
Antonio Liscidini, University of Toronto

After a first introduction of the requirements of a wireless transceiver, the main building blocks and sub-systems will be analyzed with some emphasis on of ultra-low power techniques for IoT applications. On the RF signal path low noise amplifiers, mixer topologies and base band filters will be presented. Beside the most common approaches, particular solutions oriented to ultra-low power systems will be included such as, quadrature low noise amplifiers, self-oscillating mixer, complex/poly-phase filters.
The course  will continue with the analysis of the frequency generation required to perform signal down/up conversion in the radio. Different oscillator topologies, and quadrature generation schemes will be presented. After that an overview on phase locked loop will be provided.
The first part of the course will end with a module dedicated on different transceiver architectures especially for ultra low power applications.

Microwave Circuit Design: Two-Port Parameters
Patrick Reynaert, KU Leuven, Belgium

High-frequency circuits are typically described using two-port parameters, of which the S-parameters are the most useful. On the other hand, knowing what is inside the two-port is important to understand and gain insight in circuit operation. This module will explain the basics of two-port networks while at the same time not loose track of what is inside the two-port.

Microwave Circuit Design: Smith Chart and Impedance Conversion
Patrick Reynaert, KU Leuven, Belgium

The smith chart is a very valuable graphical tool to visualize impedances and impedance transformation. On the other hand, not all integrated circuits are based on transmission line matching. This module will discuss the basics of a smith chart and discuss the benefits and drawback of using the smith chart for impedance matching and conversion.

Microwave Circuit Design: Matching and Gain
Patrick Reynaert, KU Leuven, Belgium

A basic property of an amplifier is gain. Different gain definitions are discussed and matching techniques to obtain a required value of high-frequency gain are highlighted. Next to gain, bandwidth is another key property of an amplifier and will be discussed as well.

Microwave Circuit Design: Stability Consideration
Patrick Reynaert, KU Leuven, Belgium

In a transistor circuit, achieving high gain is often limited by stability. Of course, we want to avoid unstable operation. There are various ways to look at this problem: phase-margin, K-factor, loop-gain, root-locus, etc. This lecture will give an overview of different stability criteria and approaches and discuss the benefits and drawback of each technique.

Microwave Circuit Design: Distortion
Hua Wang, ETHZ, Switzerland

In general, distortions and nonlinearity limit the maximum signal level a circuit can handle. This lecture will introduce the fundamental concept of distortions and nonlinearity and practical considerations in RF/microwave circuits designs. We will start with the definition and modeling of various nonlinearity and showcase how the resulting distortions can impact RF system performance. Next, we will explain the major sources of nonlinearity in transistor level circuits. Finally, we will introduce several widely used circuit topologies to improve the linearity performance of RF/microwave circuits.

Microwave Circuit Design: Noise
Hua Wang, ETHZ, Switzerland

Noise limits the minimum signal level a circuit can detect. This lecture will introduce the basic concepts of noise and sensitivity and practical considerations in RF/microwave circuits designs. We will start with the definition of noise and sensitivity as well as dynamic range of an RF system. We will also introduce major sources of noise from device components. Next, we will present the methods to perform noise analysis of transistor level circuits. Concepts of noise matching, noise cancellation, and noise folding will be studied as well. Finally, we will showcase several popular low noise amplifier (LNA) circuit topologies and a practical LNA design example.

Power Amplifier Basics
Hua Wang, ETHZ, Switzerland

Power amplifier (PA) boosts the transmitter signal and drive the antenna interface. This lecture will introduce the basics of PAs. We will first focus on the active device aspects of PA designs. We will introduce power device characteristics, modeling, layout optimization, and large-signal simulations, such as load-pull and source-pull simulations. Next, we will study the passive network designs for PAs. We will present matching network basics and key metrics, such as impedance transformation ratio, bandwidth, and passive loss, and their tradeoffs. We will next discuss on-chip transformers for mm-Wave PA designs, their modeling, and their use in differential PAs and power-combing PAs. We will finally present distributed baluns as “transformers” at high mm-Wave.

Power Amplifier Classes
Hua Wang, ETHZ, Switzerland

The operating classes of a power amplifier (PA) govern its performance (efficiency and linearity) and design complexity. This lecture will provide a comprehensive overview of PA classes including linear PAs (Class A, B, AB, C), harmonic-shaping linear PAs (Class F, F-1, J, and J-1), and switching PAs (Class D and E). Multiple PA design examples will be presented.

Power Amplifier Architectures
Hua Wang, ETHZ, Switzerland

This lecture will study the architecture knowledge of power amplifiers (PA). We will first introduce architectures for broadband PA, including balanced amplifiers, distributed amplifiers, and reactively matched PAs. Using transformers to realize broadband PA matching networks will be covered. Next, we will focus on architectures to enhance PA backoff efficiency. We will present Doherty PA, outphasing PA, and envelope tracking PA with their operation principles and several design examples.

Power Amplifier Design Examples and Practical Considerations
Hua Wang, ETHZ, Switzerland

This lecture will present the design practices of power amplifiers (PAs). We will first show several common mistakes in practical PA designs and present ways to avoid them. Next, we will examine PA stability and various methods to check PA small-signal and large-signal stability in practical PA designs. Finally, we will focus on PA device reliability and different breakdown mechanisms.

Antenna Arrays, Beamforming, and Antenna Interfacing (I)
Hua Wang, ETHZ, Switzerland

This lecture will introduce the fundamental knowledge of phased arrays that are widely now used in many wireless systems. The contents will focus on the circuits/systems perspectives of the arrays that are antenna agnostic. We will start with array fundamentals, such as beamforming, beamwidth, array gain, and array pattern. We will then look at array non-idealities, such as grating lobes, sidelobes, and beam squinting effects. We will also study the effect of array tapering and finite phase/delay resolutions on array patterns.

Antenna Arrays, Beamforming, and Antenna Interfacing (II)
Hua Wang, ETHZ, Switzerland

We will continue our study on phased arrays and beamforming in this lecture. We will first present several planar antenna designs commonly used in 2D scalable arrays. We will next present the analog, hybrid, and digital beamforming architectures as well as the RF/LO/IF phase shifting structures. We will also study phased arrays versus delayed arrays comparison. Further, we will study popular packaging technologies to build scalable phased arrays as well as practical array design considerations. Several mm-Wave array design examples will be demonstrated.