MINIATURIZED, LOW POWER, WIRELESS TRANSMITTER AND RECEIVER WITH ON-CHIP ANTENNA, AND WIRELESS COUPLING OF ON-CHIP AND OFF-CHIP ANTENNA

• US 20100099367A1
• Filed: 10/16/2009
• Published: 04/22/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
• Original Assignee: Atif Shamim, Muhammad Arsalan
• Inventors: ROY, Langis, ARSALAN, Muhammad, SHAMIM, Atif
• Granted Patent: US 8,412,290 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/95
• CPC Class Codes: G01T 1/026 Semiconductor dose-rate meters
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 27/14659 Direct radiation imagers structures

Abstract

A miniaturized, low power RF transmitter with a dual mode active on-chip antenna/inductor is disclosed in which antenna also serves as the oscillator inductor. Also disclosed is a miniaturized low power RF receiver with an on-chip antenna; and a RF transmitter system wherein an on-chip antenna is wirelessly coupled to an off chip patch antenna are disclosed. Advantageously, the TX chip is housed in a low loss, e.g. Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramic (LTCC) package with a patch antenna to provide a System-on-Package implementation comprising electromagnetic coupling between a RF TX chip comprising an integrated on-chip antenna and a package antenna. The on-chip antenna feeds the LTCC patch antenna through aperture coupling, thus negating the need for RF buffer amplifiers, matching elements, baluns, bond wires and package transmission lines, and significantly increases the gain and range of the module with respect to the on-chip antenna alone, without deterioration of the circuit performance and power consumption. Exemplary embodiments are disclosed which may be fabricated using standard CMOS technology, for operation in the 5 GHz U-NII band for applications such as miniaturized, low cost, low power wireless devices and sensor systems.

Claims

1. A Radio Frequency (RF) transmitter system comprising:

a first substrate supporting a monolithically integrated circuit comprising an RF transmitter comprising an on-chip antenna,

a ground plane overlying the on-chip antenna

a second substrate comprising a microstrip patch antenna overlying the ground plane and spaced therefrom by a gap; and

an aperture defined in the ground plane for electromagnetic coupling of the on-chip antenna and the patch antenna.

2. An RF transmitter module according to claim 1 wherein the aperture is a slot in the ground plane aligned to the on-chip antenna.

3. An RF transmitter module according to claim 2 wherein the slot length is selected relative to the patch antenna size to reduce backward radiation from the slot in the ground plane.

4. AN RF transmitter system according to claim 1 wherein the first substrate comprises a substrate of an integrated circuit package supporting the RF transmitter chip with on-chip-antenna, and the second substrate comprises a superstrate of the package carrying the patch antenna.

5. An RF transmitter system according to claim 4 wherein the substrate and superstrate comprise substrate and a superstrate layers respectively of a low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) multilayer package.

6. An RF transmitter system according to claim 5 wherein:

the ground plane comprises a common ground plane provided on a top surface of the LTCC substrate overlying the RF TX chip, with the slot in the ground plane aligned with the on-chip antenna;

and wherein the LTCC superstrate carrying the patch antenna is separated from the substrate by spacer means to space the substrate and the superstrate by an air gap.

7. An RF transmitter system according to claim 1 operable in the 5 GHz U-NII band.

8. An RF transmitter system according to claim 1 further comprising a power source.

9. An RF transmitter system according to claim 6 comprising a rechargeable power source carried by the substrate, comprising an ultracapacitor or a lithium polymer cell, interconnected with the RF transmitter chip.

10. An RF transmitter system according to claim 1 wherein the RF transmitter comprises a VCO transmitter, and further comprising a data signal source comprising signal processing means coupled to an input of the VCO transmitter.

11. An RF transmitter system according to claim 10 wherein the data signal source comprises a sensor means comprising one or more MOSFET sensors or FGMOSFET sensors.

12. A radio frequency (RF) transmitter comprising:

a substrate carrying a monolithically integrated RF oscillator transmitter (TX) comprising an on-chip dual mode active antenna, wherein the on-chip antenna is inductive and acts as an inductor of the oscillator transmitter.

13. A radio frequency (RF) transmitter according to claim 12 wherein the oscillator TX comprises a direct feed, open loop voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) TX, wherein a feed line of the oscillator is directly modulated by an input signal and the antenna acts as a VCO tank inductor.

14. An RF transmitter system according to claim 12 wherein the antenna comprises a loop antenna and active circuitry of the transmitter is placed within the loop, at least part of the antenna loop extending close to edges of the substrate free from active circuitry.

15. An RF transmitter system according to claim 14 wherein the loop antenna is a rectangular loop and two opposite sides of the loop are placed closed to edges of the substrate free of active circuitry, and input/output pads are located along other sides of the loop.

16. An RF transmitter system according to claim 14 wherein the VCO TX comprises an LC cross-coupled differential VCO topology.

17. An RF transmitter according to claim 12 for operation at a frequency in the range of ˜

1 GHz to ˜

10 GHz.

18. An RF transmitter according to claim 12 for operation at one or more frequencies in the 5.2 GHz U-NII band.

19. An RF transmitter according to claim 12 fabricated on a low resistivity silicon substrate.

20. An RF transmitter according to claim 19 fabricated as CMOS integrated circuit, wherein the antenna comprises a top metal layer of a CMOS process stack.

21. An RF transmitter according claim 12 fabricated on a substrate area of ˜

1.5 mm² or less.

22. An RF transmitter according to claim 12 wherein the inductor antenna has an inductance of at least 1 nH and/or a differential Q greater than 10.

32. An RF transmitter according to claim 12, further comprising, monolithically integrated on the same substrate, a RF receiver circuit comprising an on-chip antenna, wherein the receiver comprises a low noise amplifier and a delay locked loop, and wherein the impedances of the on-chip antenna and the LNA are substantially conjugately matched.

23. A radio frequency (RF) receiver comprising:

a monolithically integrated RF receiver circuit comprising an on-chip antenna, wherein the receiver comprises a low noise amplifier and a delay locked loop, and

wherein the impedances of the on-chip antenna and the LNA are substantially conjugately matched.

24. An RF receiver according to claim 23 wherein the antenna is directly coupled to the LNA without additional matching components.

25. An RF receiver according to claim 23 wherein the on-chip antenna comprises a dipole antenna or a folded dipole antenna.

26. An RF receiver according to claim 25 wherein the antenna is placed near edges of the substrate, and all elements of the LNA and DLL are placed within the antenna area.

27. An RF receiver according to claim 23 for operation at a frequency within the 5 GHz U-NII band.

28. An RF receiver according to claim 23 for operation at a frequency in the range from ˜

1 to ˜

10 GHz.

29. An RF receiver according to claim 23 fabricated on a low resistivity silicon substrate.

30. An RF receiver according to claim 25 or claim 28 fabricated on a substrate area of 1.3 mm² or less.

31. An RF receiver according to claim 23 where in the DLL is fully differential, and the DLL comprises a CML based phase and frequency detector (PFD) and voltage controlled delay loop (VCDL).