Cross-domain Techniques to Enable Power-friendly Wireless Transceivers

PhD Defense

Sam Gharavi
Advisor: Babak Daneshrad

Abstract
With the continuous scaling of CMOS technology, two opposite trends can be observed. First trend is exponential improvement of the digital logic and second trend is linear degradation of the analog and RF components. Traditional methodology for designing analog and RF focuses on optimizing the performance of individual blocks such as analog-to-digital converters, frequency synthesizers, etc. Unfortunately, such traditional approach is limited by the unforgiving power-consumption-performance tradeoffs encountered in the design of each circuit block. As a result, high power consumption of RF and analog has become a major show-stopper for implementation of new communication algorithms.

Alternatively, one can “assist” the underperforming RF and analog blocks using cross-domain (RF-analog-digital) techniques. Such cross-domain approach leads to a significant saving in the power consumption while achieving the desired system performance (e.g. bit-error rate). In particular, we have developed novel, cross-domain techniques to assist the non-ideal function of analog-to-digital converter, frequency synthesizer and phased arrays to enable a power-friendly, mm-wave wireless link.

Biography
Sam Gharavi is a PhD candidate in the Wireless Integrated Systems Lab (WISL). His research interests include analog and digital circuits and systems.
Department Hosting Electrical Engineering Contact Name Sam Gharavi Contact Email Address gharavi@ee.ucla.edu Contact Phone 3110-825-2647 Submitter Name Carmen Chiuco