Memristor-based Multi-Band RF Power Amplifiers

The growing demand to connect the world is pushing wireless systems to be smaller than ever. This is part of the increasing move to a data driven world with billions of connected devices in the era of the Internet of Things (IoT) and space and energy are critical design criteria. Traditionally, miniaturization was possible owing to a focus in a single frequency and a single communication protocol. However, the real challenge is scaling multi-frequency/multi-protocol RF systems. It is highly desirable to have adaptable RF-chains, which means adaptable filters, amplifiers, matching networks, etc.

CMOS is widely used as low noise, low-power, and high-power gain amplifiers. A critical design tradeoff in RF amplifier exists between stability, noise, power, linearity specifications. Memristive devices are two terminal passive circuit elements, whose resistance is determined by the history of the applied voltage or current, and is retained whenever the voltage or current is no longer applied (non-volatility). Recently, nanoscale memristive RF switches have proven to achieve low insertion loss, high isolation and high cutoff frequency, while adding the characteristic non-volatility, low switching energy, and small footprint of memristors.

In this project a tunable power amplification stage will be designed and evaluated. Both stabilization techniques and matching networks will be implemented by memristor-based circuits. The project is based on advanced research. The implementation will be done in Virtuoso and/or ADS.

Schedule:

• Study the principles of memristive RF devices, tunable inductors and RF power amplifiers.

• Design of a generic power amplification stage (preferably Doherty). Evaluation of performance (gain, linearity and efficiency).

• Implementation of memristor-based input and output multiband matching network.

• Study of different linearization techniques for maximum efficiency. Implementation of an integration technique with a memristor-based circuit.

• Evaluation of the complete RF amplifier.