Trends in mmWave devices, ICs and packaging for electronics test and measurement

Daniel Thomasson, PhD Director, Keysight HFTC

October 2014

Trends in mmWave devices, ICs & packaging for electronics T&M

– Keysight & HFTC Intro

– Market Drivers

– Technology Needs

– IC

– Device Technology

– Packaging

– Summary

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Introduction to Keysight & HFTC

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A Brief History of Keysight

1939–1998: The Hewlett-Packard years A company founded on electronic measurement innovation

1999–2013: The Agilent Technologies years Spun off from HP, Agilent became the World’s Premier Measurement Company In September 2013, announced the spin off its electronic measurement business

2014: Keysight begins operations Focused 100% on electronic measurement industry

Market Leadership in Core Platforms

Core Platforms Leadership Position

Electronic Design Automation

Highest performance design software used by 2/3 of the world’s RF/Microwave designers

Network Analyzers

Highest performance, broadest offering, including industry-leading PNA-X microwave network analyzers

Signal Analyzers

Highest performance signal analyzer family, including the flagship PXA X-Series

Signal Sources

Highest performance signal generators led by the industry-standard PSG performance signal generator

Oscilloscopes Product leadership in high-performance oscilloscopes via proprietary technology and application expertise

One Box Testers Two new R&D (UXM) and manufacturing (EXM) platforms for 4G and beyond

Technology for Electronics Measurement

>20 dB Better …than what our customers need to measure

Broadband Frequency Coverage

High Dynamic Range High Power & Low Noise Floor

High Fidelity / Low Distortion Mod Quality/EVM/Spurs/Harmonics

Low Noise Amplitude & Phase Noise

High Repeatability

Robust Manufacturability

High Reliability

Low Cost of Ownership

Long Platform Life

High Mix – Low Volume

Leading Edge

T&M Grade Manufacturing

Performance • Value • Quality

Invent and deliver world-leading signal conditioning technology

HFTC University Access Tech Access

High Frequency Technology Center

Basic Research Development Design NPI Mfg Applied

Research

High-Performance GaAs • InP • >200 GHz transistors • THz diodes World-class R&D and manufacturing engineers

75 professionals • 30 PhDs • 140 production

High-Mix 13 core technologies

200+ IC products

High-Complexity Low-Volume 55,000 process steps completed per mo

555 process steps per wafer 2500 wafers • 3M chips/yr

High-Quality

4000 ft2 Reliability Lab 100% dc/rf KGD

Design & Development

Pilot & Production

R&D & Production Rel

Photo removed

HFTC mmWave Enabling the 90000 Q-series 63 GHz Oscilloscope

Innovative Technology… • mmWave InP HBT, PHEMT and Schottky MMICs and Diodes

• Precision Hybrid Microcircuit solutions deliver 63 GHz

• Innovative architecture

Enables Differentiation… • Industry’s highest real time bandwidth - 63 GHz on two channels

• Industry’s highest 4-channel bandwidth - 33 GHz, 160 GS/s

• Industry’s lowest noise and jitter measurement floor

• Industry’s deepest memory - 2 Gpts

… in the World’s Most Accurate Real time Oscilloscope

Acquisition Board

mmWave Chipset

63 GHz Microcircuits

Enabling Leading Products EXG and MXG

Signal Generators MCD

golden transmitter

in R&D

Infiniium 90000 X-Series Oscilloscope OPD

G-Rex InP chipset

highest bandwidth best signal fidelity

FieldFox Handheld Analyzer CTD

world’s highest

performance handheld

N9030A PXA Signal Analyzer MCD

flagship lead in

dynamic range & phase noise

Infiniium 9000 Series Oscilloscope OPD

superior reliability

excellent signal fidelity

PNA-X Network Analyzer CTD

303 MMICs, 31 designs

widest range of single-connection

measurements

E6607A EXT Wireless Comms. Test Set MCD

performance and speed

across multiple radio standards

86100D Infiniium DCA-X Oscilloscope OPD

Chameleon InP chipset

comprehensive jitter analysis

N9403B J-BERT Serial BERT ETD

industry’s best pulse fidelity

Market Drivers for mmWave in T&M

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Millimeter-Wave Test & Measurement Market two broad segments

Aerospace & Defense

traditional frequency-domain (FD) drivers

Digital Communications

new time-domain (TD) drivers

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Global Internet Traffic users access rates & methods services

http://www.ieee802.org/3/ad_hoc/bwa/BWA_Report.pdf

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The Next Ten Years

– Today’s reality: immediate availability of data, always and everywhere

• fixed and mobile computing devices with high data bandwidth

• cloud storage with large-capacity data centers, network access

• broadband wired and wireless networks

– Tomorrow’s vision: the interconnection of people and things

• but both people and machines create and consume data

• the ‘the internet of things’ (IoT)

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Ethernet the next ten years: 100Gbaud for 1TbE

adapted from http://www.ieee802.org/3/ad_hoc/bwa/BWA_Report.pdf, “The need for speed: beyond 100GbE,” OFC 2013 Panel #2, and http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog52/presentations/Tuesday/hankins-100-gbe-and-beyond.pdf

Major challenges: • technical: baud rate, channel

density and power/bit • economic: cost/bit • market: hit the window

• represents a very strong future TD driver

• TD instruments must keep up to support new standards

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Mobile

– revolutionary, not evolutionary

• speed: 10Gb/s, 100× faster than 4G

• latency: 1ms for M2M and IoT

• mobility: available everywhere

• density: very crowded

• low cost, low energy

– safe assumptions

• microwave & mmWave frequencies: 10-50, 60, 70-80GHz, …

• wide bandwidths: 500MHz to 3GHz

• new antenna technologies: steerable arrays, massive MIMO

the next ten years: 5G is mmWave cellular

Gerhard P. Fettweis, ”5G – what will it be: the tactile internet,” IEEE ICC, Jun 2013. A. Osseiran, “Mobile and wireless communications system for 2020 and beyond (5G),” ITU-R 2020 Vision Workshop, 12 Feb 2014, available at https://www.metis2020.com/documents/presentations/.

5G

2020

today

today

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1

10

100

1000

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

Ban

dw

idth

(G

Hz)

Year of Introduction

Broadband Instrument Bandwidth

VNA SA RT scope FD trend TD trend

The Result…

frequency domain VNA and SA

2× every ~15yr

time-domain real-time oscilloscope

2× every ~3yr

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T&M Technology Needs

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CMOS Performance and Density Continue to Advance

CMOS mm-wave research/product development on-going

From: http://www.digitaltonto.com/2011/4-digital-laws/

CMOS – Impressive Achievements

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CMOS – 70-85 GHz Example

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CMOS not the T&M solution …

Limited Voltage Swing Limited Dynamic Range

Limited Linearity Very limited BB power

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

Logi

c Le

vel (

Vo

lts)

Logic Levels

Logic Levels

Break Down Voltages drop as Ft & Fmax Increase Limits Dynamic Range and Broad-Band Power

CMOS – Analog Limitations

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T&M Requirements

Challenges Broad Bandwidths DC – 110+ GHz

High Dynamic Range -130dBm to +30dBm Extreme Linearity 50 dBm TOI, 75 to 90dBc ACPR Low Spurious, Low Harmonics, Low Phase Noise

PXI and Handheld-Specific Challenges DC Power Dissipation

Costs Size

Source Block Diagram Spectrum Analyzer Block Diagram

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Challenges to Integration

Optimum Technology Differs by Functional Block • CMOS – digital • GaN – power • HBTs – gain, complex analog • YIGs, Cavities, etc. - Filters • etc.

80dBc ACPR 130dB Isolation

100dB Isolation 10MHz – 110GHz 20Vpp Swings

90+dBc ACPR 45 - 55 dBm TOI

90dBc Spurs

3Hz – 110GHz 20Vpp Swings

70dB Isolation

Very High Drive Very High TOI

Low Loss Switches

Low Noise Amps

Isolation • Chip Isolation Decreases with Frequency • ~40dB typical 30GHz • Often need >100 dB

Performance Expectations • Broadband, 50 ohm Equipment • 30 dBm Power Handling, 20Vpp • Better Performance than DUT - commercial system ~40dBc ACPR - test system ~75dBc ACPR

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IC Trends

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Page

IQ Modulators

Detectors

Shocklines & 3 Samplers

Switches & Attenuators

Digital MMICs

Amplifiers

Limiters

MMIC Portfolio >200 IC products covering DC to >100GHz

Mixers & Multipliers

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Trends for mmW T&M ICs

Top Drivers – frequency (bandwidth)

– spectral efficiency (bit/Hz)

– cost (economics)

• higher levels of integration

• lower cost of test

mmW T&M IC Trends

– fast transistors

– multiple semi technologies

– analog, digital & microwave design techniques in same IC

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Page

Single-Ended Amplifiers

29

broadband and banded topologies

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Broadband Differential Amplifiers

30

limiting and linear topologies

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Mixed-Signal ICs

31

money-specs = analog characteristics of digital signal

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Mixed-Signal ICs coming soon: fully distributed mixed-signal ICs

wavelength at 120GHz ~ 1mm

min length of a distributed element

flip-flop

amplifier

mixer

amplifier

wavelength at 30GHz ~ 4mm

min length of a distributed element

distributed design

lumped design

• IC design methodology changes dramatically when the physical element sizes > 10% of a wavelength • future mixed-signal ICs designed to operate at the fastest data rates will cross this threshold, becoming

‘distributed’ mixed-signal ICs, a term usually reserved for amplifiers

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Device Technology Trends

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mmWave Transistors

Instrumentation requirements ‒ Broad bandwidth ‒ High power ‒ Low noise ‒ Excellent quality/reliability ‒ Cost per Q ‒ IC Development cost

Important devices ‒ GaN HEMT ‒ InP HEMT / GaAs mHEMT ‒ InP & SiGe HBT

SHINOHARA et al.: SCALING OF GaN HEMTs AND SCHOTTKY DIODES IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 60, NO. 10, OCT2013

Johnson’s FOM = vsat*Ebr/2p. Data from /www.ioffe.ru/SVA/NSM

Material

Eg

(eV)

mn

(cm2/Vs)

Vsat

(107cm/s)Ebr

(MV/cm) JFOMx/JFOMSi

Diamond 5.5 1900 2.0 5.6 47n-GaN 3.4 1500 2.5 3.0 31n-SiC 3.3 300 2.0 2.2 18n-InP 1.4 4500 1.0 0.5 2.1n-GaAs 1.4 5000 0.8 0.4 1.3n-Si 1.1 1300 0.8 0.3 1.0In0.53Ga0.47As 0.8 11000 0.8 0.2 0.7n-Ge 0.7 3900 0.6 0.2 0.5

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GaN HEMT

Intrinsically Advantageous Material System ‒ Wide bandgap, large BV → high power ‒ 2DEG density 5-10X higher than other III-V ‒ High electron mobility and saturated velocity ‒ Many strong GaN programs

HRL 70-110GHz GaN-based PA – from “WPA” datasheet

Promise ‒ Ft, Fmax > 300 GHz (production quality) ‒ IC bandwidth > 200GHz (production quality)

Challenges Trap related effects! ‒ Instrument level quality and reliability ‒ Instrument level noise, linearity, signal integrity ‒ Integration for 1000Q ICs ‒ Modeling and design infrastructure ‒ T&M needs a Watt with fantastic signal integrity and

stability more than 10 Watts with compromised SI

Pout = 18 dBm

SHINOHARA et al. IEDM2011 pp. 19.1.1

Expect to be significant for targeted T&M applications

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GaAs mHEMT / InP HEMT Status

Very high frequency, not much breakdown ‒ InGaAs 2DEG has high electron mobility ‒ BV and power limit by narrow InGaAs bandgap ‒ Few players Promise ‒ Scaling of gates to < 50 nm

‒ Ft, Fmax > 1 THz ‒ IC bandwidth > 400 GHZ

Challenges

− Power slump at moderate drain voltages − Low integration limits functionality

Niche player getting pressed by other technologies. Wins at very highest frequencies

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SiGe HBTs

− Benefits: fast, high integration→ order(s) magnitude more transistors than III-V − Challenges: low breakdown voltage, high NRE mask costs relative to low vol T&M − SiGe makes sense in many applications and we design in it when volumes justify

Ruker et al, SiRF 2012 pp133 Technology for highest integration, when low voltage ok, high volumes

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InP HBTs

Benefits – Much higher breakdown voltage than SiGe HBTs

→ Higher output voltage/power – Very high speed (heading to THz) – Higher integration levels versus HEMTs – Much lower development cost as internal foundry

Future Direction – higher integration, faster

Xu, CSICS, 2014

Lobisser, IPRM, 2012

High performance and broad applicability to T&M.

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T&M mmWave Device Summary

Technology Future

Mature GaAs Fully meets many needs. Cheap. Important for long time to come.

GaN Significant for targeted BB power applications, especially where GaAs has reached limits.

InP HEMT/mHEMT Niche player. Ultra-high frequency only.

SiGe HBT Many applications. Fast & high integration, but low breakdown and more costly for high mix-low-vol.

InP HBTs Fast & high breakdown w/ moderate integration. Many applications now. Workhorse.

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mmW Packaging

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(#) New MMIC/QFN, R=recent release ramp

T&M Packaging Technologies

Key Attributes • Reliability (environmental)

• Performance (loss/isolation/match)

• ‘Right sized’ for the application (cost/size)

• Support ICs (CTE/thermal/bias/mechanical)

Drivers • Increased IC power dissipation

• Increased IC functionality – I/O count

• Higher frequency

• Higher density

From 2-port, 1-source

To 4-port, 2-sources 26-50-67GHz

PXI format Up to 32-port 26 GHz VNA per mainframe

Handheld No-vents, battery powered 26GHz VNA, SA, power meter

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Tota

l S

olu

tion C

ost

Performance (freq, integration, isolation, power handling etc.)

SMT

Hybrid

In PCB

Hybrid

SMT

Hybrid on

PCB

Hybrid uckt

Packaging Value Model

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SMT

• Flexibility in layout and integration

• On-going push for high speed PCBs

• QFN (Quad Flat-pack Non-leaded) • Plastic encapsulated • Industry standard • Flexible sizes • Minimize lead inductance • Microwave performance

Mold Compound Die

Cu Leadframe Gold Wire

Lands

QFN section

High Density PCA

microwave performance at

PCB cost

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Hybrid

• Traditional – proven microcircuit technology

• Performance to 110GHz and beyond

• Optimal thermal environment

• Hermetic possible

• Supports 3D designs

mmWave & sub-mmWave premium solution

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Summary

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Materials Science

Device Physics Semiconductor

Process Technologies

Reliability &

Statistics MMIC Design

MMIC Pkg

MMIC On-wafer Test

Modules & applications

Thin Films (TF)

Connectors (PMTC) MicroMachining

(PMTC)

T&M mmWave Technology

T&M solutions must be flexible

Demands premium signal conditioning

Unique requirements

Diverse technology needs

Drives different tech choices

Exciting challenges

Many opportunities

Calibration (CTD)

EM simulation & Modeling

mm-wave mfg & test

Preliminary PXA2’s Cross Functional Milestones

Agilent Private

March-2011Page 7

FE FW support of 1st LO, 140/255 MHz switch and LO nulling 8/29(SW work starts)

AIF255 1st integration (Using external cal and doing some temperature testing)10/3

LO/reference 1st integration, measure high band phase noise, gage performance of FEC & LO10/3

RTSA White paper due 10/31

FFT sweep speed up

Chirp sweep Bench mark FFT engine with SW optimization

1st report (7/25) 2nd report (10/31)

Partial re-config.?(7/25)

NPI SHC model (7/11) Specs(7/18) Roll out options(7/25) EI test equipments(9/5) New SCPI defined (9/26)

Full System

Integration &

Decision on

Board turns

11/21/2011

8/8

DEF 10/14

TR2 10/11

RTSA PD work starts

RTSA implementation & proof

Of concept

PCIe To PCD 6/27 To FAB 7/18 Board turned on 8/29 FW defined 9/18 Fully tested 10/14

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