Fully Integrated CMOS Radios from RF to Millimeter Wave Frequencies

This paper reviews (a) recent CMOS demonstrations of capabilities for Radio Frequency (RF), microwave, and millimeter wave circuits from 1 GHz to 100 GHz, (b) advances in on-die isolation structures for integrating radio’s delicate circuits with very noisy general-purpose processors on the same die, and (c) entirely novel design methods for complex RF passive networks on the package substrate by engineering the physical design of the package substrate (no discrete passive components added to the package) that diminish the silicon area requirements for multiband multiprotocol CMOS radios and frees silicon area to host complex digital processing and communication engines. Circuit design techniques are discussed to cope with intrinsic CMOS challenges and technology scaling. Building upon these developments, a vision for CMOS technology and platform direction is proposed.