Title:  Millimeter-wave Quadrature Receivers for Atmospheric Sensing and Radiometry

Committee:

Dr. John Crssler ECE, Chair, Advisor

Dr. Paul Steffes, ECE

Dr. Nelson Lourenco, ECE

Dr. Albin Gasiewski, CU Boulder

Dr. Glenn Lightsey, AE

Abstract: The objective of this research is to investigate the design challenges of millimeter wave (mm-wave) quadrature receivers for emerging applications and develop new ideas to ad- dress these challenges. Next-generation wireless networks, satellite communications, at- mospheric sensing instruments, autonomous vehicle radars, and body scanners are targeting to operate at mm-wave frequencies, and high-performance electronics are needed to enable these technologies. In this research, we investigate novel circuit topologies to improve the performance of existing mm-wave quadrature receivers, particularly for radiometry and remote sensing applications. A transformer-based front-end switch is co-designed with an LNA where the transformer acts as the input matching network of the LNA, reducing the front- end loss and system noise figure. Broadband and low-loss quadrature signal generation networks are proposed to provide highly balanced quadrature signals to reject the image frequency content. In addition, a high-efficiency frequency multiplier topology is demon- strated, achieving superior performance compared to the state-of-the-art designs. Lastly, the reliability and noise performance of on-chip noise source devices (PN junctions) in a SiGe BiCMOS platform was characterized and compared. To confirm the advantages of our ideas, the measurement and simulation results of all fabricated circuits are presented and discussed.