Millimeter-Wave and Sub-Terahertz Parametric Harmonic Generation

The theory of parametric harmonic generation is described in this thesis. It is shown that for Nth-order harmonic generation the time-varying parameter (P), such as elastance (S), capacitance (C), conductance (G), or resistance (R), exhibits N−1 periods of a sine wave under one sinusoidal pumping cycle, which is named sinusoidal representation of pumped parameters. The maximum conversion efficiency of reactive frequency multipliers is 1/N. The related P-V curves are described by the Chebyshev polynomials. Impulse representation of pumped parameters is also developed to represent a transient train of pulses to describe the resistive multipliers. Several circuits are designed to demonstrate the validity of the theory and explore the parametric circuits in millimeter-wave and sub-THz bands. A frequency tripler is designed in the 28-GHz 5G band, using the topology of symmetric antiparallel pair of series varactors to achieve about 24-dB conversion loss (CL), −8-dBm maximum output power (POUT), and 18% relative bandwidth (BW). Two reconfigurable frequency multipliers (RFMs) are designed based on antiparallel nMOS-varactor pairs (APNVP) and switched-capacitor varactor (SCV) pairs. The SCV can obtain the ratio of maximum-to-minimum capacitance as high as 20, almost 10 times better than that of MOS varactors. The SCV-based RFM demonstrates much better performance than the APNVP-based RFM. A resistive tripler based on an antiparallel diode-connected nMOS transistor pair is also designed and measured in the D-band, with wide 28% BW and −16 dBm POUT. The CL can be improved by increasing the non-linearity of the resistance by tuning the back-gate control voltage. A voltage-controlled inductor is proposed based on a transistor-controlled capacitor and demonstrated in a D-band injection-locked oscillator with a ≥16% tunable operating frequency range, dc power as low as 5.6 mW, and a compact 0.018-square-mm core size.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Engineering – Electrical & Computer

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Schulich School of Engineering

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Zhang, Nan

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Belostotski, Leonid
• Haslett, James W.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Ghannouchi, Fadhel M.
• Helaoui, Mohamed
• Barclay, Paul E.
• Mirabbiasi, Shahriar

• harmonic generation
• parametric circuit
• reconfigurable frequency multiplier
• switched-capacitor varactor
• time-varying parameter

Statement dc:rights

• University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.

Language dc:language.iso

eng

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/38631

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ucalgary.scholaris.ca:1880/113069