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UMC fabricates 192GHz CMOS for Florida U |
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Feb 21, 2006 at 02:06 PM |
 UMC has fabricated a 192GHz circuit, claimed as the fastest silicon device to date. The 192GHz push-push Voltage-Controlled Oscillator (VCO) was fabricated in a 0.13micron RFCMOS process technology. The chip was developed by the University of Florida's Silicon Microwave Integrated Circuits and Systems Research Group (SIMICS). This group previously produced a 105GHz VCO at UMC in June 2005.
VCOs are used in virtually all RF and wireless systems. High frequency oscillators are used in the development of technology for advanced remote sensing and imaging applications to accomplish chemical detection, detection through fabric, imaging through fog and clouds, and the detection of skin cancer.
Oscillators that generate signals at normal transistor operating frequencies can be pushed to 2X, 3X, 4X the frequency, etc. However, the signals produced at these higher frequencies are often too weak to be effective. Push-push VCOs achieve higher device gain, along with higher varactor and capacitor quality (Q) factors, because the core operating frequency is only one half of the output frequency. Transmission line loss is also lower--resulting in a stronger signal.
The SIMICS VCO provides output power of approximately 20dBm and phase noise of approximately 100dBc/Hz at 10MHz offset, while consuming 11mA from a 1.5V supply. The research work was supported by DARPA and was published last week (16 February 2006) in the UK's Institute of Electrical Engineers (IEE) journal "Electronics Letters". The paper's authors were Changhua Cao, Eunyoung Seok and Kenneth O.
"This is particularly exciting because we produced the VCO using a 0.13micron CMOS process," said Professor Kenneth O. "We also have a 140GHz fundamental VCO running in our lab, which has been fabricated using UMC's 90nm logic process. It should be a straightforward matter to turn this into a push-push VCO to generate approximately 280GHz signal. Furthermore, if a 65nm process is used, we can probably reach 350-400GHz. Generating a THz (1E12 Hz) signal in CMOS technology is not far off."
By Dr Mike Cooke
Patrick T. Lin, chief SoC architect, system & architecture support at UMC, commented: "We are excited about the technological achievements that we have accomplished with the university to date and look forward to offering the fruits of these developments to the mainstream RF design community."
The picture shows Dr. Kenneth K. O, Professor, UF Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
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