Wireless communication technologies are changing rapidly. As the potential for wireless applications expands to smart buildings, video streaming and everything in between, there is increasing demand for wireless solutions that are power efficient and able to function at a broad range of frequencies.
Higher carrier frequencies, are needed to expand the possible spectrum of wireless communications as existing bandwidths start to experience traffic congestion. UBC’s System-on-Chip lab is looking at ways to solve the challenges of wireless communication in the millimeter wave range by altering the architecture of the frequency synthesis chip itself. Their self-mixing VCO (voltage controlled oscillator) architecture focuses on cleverly using the second order harmonic of the signal along with the fundamental to reduce power consumption and phase noise and at the same time produce a larger tuning range.
The paper describing this work won the Third Best Student Paper Award at the prestigious IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits conference sponsored by The IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (M-TTS). M-TTS is a transnational society with more than 11,000 members and 150 chapters worldwide. The Society promotes the advancement of microwave theory and its applications, including RF, microwave, millimeter-wave, and terahertz technologies.
Prof. Shahriar Mirabbasi, Prof. Sudip Shekhar, Amir Masnadi, and Prof. Albert Wang, TPC co-chair for 2015 IEEE RFIC
Pictured above: System-on-Chip research team
Find out more:
A Class-C Self-Mixing-VCO Architecture with High Tuning-Range and Low Phase-Noise for mm-Wave Applications, Amir Hossein Masnadi Shirazi, Amir Nikpaik, Reza Molavi, Shahriar Mirabbasi, and Sudip Shekhar