Design of Active-Based Passive Components for Radio Frequency Applications

• Author / Creator

  Ghadiri Bayekolaee, Aliakbar

• In this dissertation, we propose new structures of active-based passive components as well as new utilizations of these devices in radio-frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). The active-based passive components, by definition, are the basic passive electronic devices (resistors, capacitors, and inductors) with positive or negative values which are realized using transistors. These components have been used in RFICs to compensate for the non-ideality or undesired parasitics of other circuit elements in order to improve the overall circuit performance.
  We present new configurations of the active-based passive devices to improve the performance of the conventional topologies. We present modified structures of the active inductor, and negative capacitance (NCAP) that exhibit linear impedance/admittance characteristics in a broad frequency band where an extra NCAP is used to reduce the effect of the shunt parasitic capacitance. Furthermore, we present new active configurations for capacitors which exhibit high quality factor (Q) in millimeter-wave frequency band where their passive counterparts fail to provide high Q.
  Second, we explore new utilizations of the active-based passive components in the design of RF and Microwave circuits. An area-efficient distributed amplifier (DA) is designed in which area-consuming passive inductors are replaced with their active counterparts. Also, a new high-gain structure of DA is presented in which negative capacitance cells are exploited to ameliorate the loading effects of parasitic capacitors of gain cells in order to improve the gain-bandwidth product of the distributed amplifiers. A 40-GHz filter was fabricated using our proposed single-ended active capacitor with a measured tunable insertion loss is 0dB.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Active-Based Passive Components, Radio Frequency, Active Inductor

• Graduation date

  Fall 2011

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3N88J

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.