A fully-integrated self-healing power amplifier

Bowers, Steven M.; Sengupta, Kaushik; Dasgupta, Kaushik; Hajimiri, Ali

doi:10.1109/rfic.2012.6242268

Cited by 31 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The order is stored in the policy block. [8]- [9] We propose to introduce a feedback to the policy block from the knob configurations and make the policy block contain the MDP based optimal policy π * . This can be stored in as a look up table or implemented via digital logic.…”

Section: System Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

mTunes

Zaheer

et al. 2015

Proceedings of the 52nd Annual Design Automation Conference

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Uncertainty prevails in IC manufacturing and circuit operation. In particular, process variability has a huge impact on circuit performance, especially for mixed-signal/RF circuits, leading to unacceptable yields. Additionally, environmental uncertainties, such as temperature fluctuation and channel variation, further deteriorate performances in field. To combat variability, circuits are often made reconfigurable by adding tunable knobs to recover circuit performance in the post-manufacturing stage. However, as the number of knobs increases, knob tuning becomes challenging due to the huge search space. In fact, knob-tuning policies can have an observable impact on final performance and power consumption. In this paper, we propose mTunes, a method based on the Markov decision process for dynamically choosing the "right" knob tuning sub-routine from a pre-defined set achieving a balance between performance and power constraints. The proposed method has been applied to a reconfigurable RF front-end design, showing 60% improvement in yield compared to static tuning policies.

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Section: System Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

mTunes

Zaheer

et al. 2015

Proceedings of the 52nd Annual Design Automation Conference

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“…This approach is convenient because it requires no modification to the core amplifier, but it requires analog input voltages. In order to interface the bias nodes with digital control circuitry, additional digital-to-analog converters (DACs) must be included, which increases the amplifier footprint and power consumption [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A digitally-controlled seven-state X-band SiGe variable gain low noise amplifier

Schmid

Cressler

2014

2014 IEEE Bipolar/BiCMOS Circuits and Technology Meeting (BCTM)

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This work describes the design of a digitallycontrolled seven-state variable gain low noise amplifier. The amplifier utilizes separately biased transistor cores to activate additional transistor area and change the amplifier gain. Variable gain low noise amplifiers enable greater dynamic range in RF receivers and provide amplitude control for phased-array systems. The amplifier was fabricated in a 180 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology platform featuring SiGe HBTs with an f T /f max of 240/260 GHz. When all transistor cores are activated, the amplifier achieves 16.5 dB of gain and a noise figure of 1.6 dB at 10 GHz. A gain variation of 7 dB from the maximum to the minimum state is demonstrated. In addition, the noise figure, linearity, and gain all improve with increasing transistor area and power dissipation, indicating an optimum state can be selected to meet receiver requirements while minimizing power dissipation.

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“…In this context, there has been significant work in the area of digitallyassisted tuning of analog circuits including PLLs, frequency synthesizers, and digital radio . An integrated mm-wave self-healing power amplifier is proposed in [3] that can adapt to mitigate the effects of process variation, modeling inaccuracies, load mismatch and catastrophic failures . A self-healing image reject mixer that runs the healing algorithm in the baseband processor and mitigates the effects of process variation, environmental changes and aging, is proposed in [ 4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of self-healing mixed-signal/RF systems and support CAD tools: A scalable approach

Chatterjee

Wang

Banerjee

et al. 2014

2014 IEEE 57th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS)

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Due to the proliferation of nanometer CMOS mixed-signal/RF circuits and a push towards high operating speeds (5-100 Ghz+), there has been renewed interest in the design of high-speed circuits and systems that can self-calibrate and self-heal post-manufacture and in the field. In the past, designers have invented selfhealing mechanisms that are tailored towards specific (critical) mixed-signal/RF performance metrics of specific circuit architectures (transmitter, receiver, etc). What is desired, however, is the ability to monitor multiple performance metrics concurrently and trade them off against one another in an optimal manner, through performance tuning mechanisms, to satisfy system-level Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees. Further, the methods employed must be scalable across different device types/circuit architectures and supported by CAD tools that enable automation of self-healing design procedures.In this paper, recent research advances are presented that allow low cost and rapid selfhealing of complex mixed-signal/RF systems and enable the development of design automation tools to support such activity across diverse performance metrics and circuit types.

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A fully-integrated self-healing power amplifier

Cited by 31 publications

References 4 publications

mTunes

mTunes

A digitally-controlled seven-state X-band SiGe variable gain low noise amplifier

Design of self-healing mixed-signal/RF systems and support CAD tools: A scalable approach

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