A self-healing mm-wave amplifier using digital controlled artificial dielectric transmission lines

A self-healing mm-wave amplifier using digital controlled artificial dielectric (DiCAD) transmission lines is proposed. DiCAD transmission lines are employed to correct the frequency shifting of input matching (S11), output matching (S22) and gain (S21) due to process, voltage and temperature (PVT) variation and model inaccuracy. On-chip power detector is integrated into the amplifier to detect the output voltage strength, which could be used to implement the closed-loop frequency self-calibration. The chip is implemented in 65nm CMOS with a die area of 0.48×0.79 mm2 including the PADs. Measurement results show that the gain of the amplifier is improved by 3.4dB and the input matching is improved by 20.3dB at 56GHz after healing.

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