Research
Research | Wireless Hardware Design Group
Wireless Hardware Design Group (Dr.W.B.Kuhn)
The Communications Circuits Laboratory conducts coordinated teaching and research in analog/RF design. Through a sequence of lab-oriented courses, students design, build, and test complete radios at VHF through microwave frequencies each semester. This gives our graduates the practical, hands-on experience necessary for this field of engineering. Our research efforts have been primarily focused on design of transceivers in integrated circuit form, with special emphasis on the modeling and application of high-Q spiral inductors. Students and faculty have experience with standard bulk-CMOS, newer Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) and Silicon-on-Sapphire (SOS), and GaAs processes. Designs are created with tools from both Agilent and Cadence and tested at the board and chip levels with industry-calibre measurement equipment and probing stations.
Current Projects
Working together with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Peregrine Semiconductor, K-State is designing a new ultra-low power, low mass, small volume UHF transceiver for future Mars exploration craft such as miniature rovers, aerobots, and balloons.
Jet Propulsion Lab
Cal Tech?s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has supported a series of projects at K-State. These projects center around the application of Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technologies and range from the design of fully-integrated L-Band T/R modules for future earth-observing radars to studies of Neural Prosthesis electronics.
Peregrine Semiconductor
K-State works with Peregrine Semiconductor on issues ranging from modeling and optimization of on-chip passives (e.g. inductors), to design of RFIC subsystems.
Honeywell
Honeywell Corporation provides support for design of opto-electronics and RFIC components in both Silicon-on-Sapphire and GaAs technologies.
Test and Measurement Equipment
KSU's CCL offers a collection of test and measurement equipment that rivals facilities found in many major corporations. Test and measurement capabilities include:
- RF signal generation to 6 GHz,
- Vector network analysis to 6 GHz,
- Spectrum analysis to 22 GHz,
- Temperature Measurements on electronic components, IC and semiconductor wafer from +200°C to -120°C.
Additional equipment ranging from 200 MHz oscilloscopes, to accessories such as power dividers and attenuators are also available for compression / intermodulation measurements, noise figure measurements, etc.
While the main application of this equipment is classroom and research use at the PC board and module levels, the CCL also has capabilities for wafer/chip level stimulus and measurement. A set of micropositioners with resolutions approaching 1um (donated by Cascade Microtech), together with 40 GHz coplanar RF probes allow on-chip 2-port S-parameter measurements to be made.
Electronic Design Automation
RF Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools are available in the CCL for use in circuit and system verification, optimization, and layout. Like the test equipment described above, the capabilities of this software meets or exceeds that found in many industry settings.Through a generous $1.1M donation from Hewlett Packard's EEsof division, KSU offers students access to the complete Series IV and ADS software suites.This software is hosted on the department's
UNIX network composed of Sun Sparc 2, Sparc 5, and Sparc Ultra machines and provides system-level, circuit-level, and electromagnetic simulation as well as microstrip layout tools. Click on the links given below for more inforamtion on how to use the EDA tools.
Fabrication Capabilities
RF circuits can be fabricated through several methods, depending on frequency of operation and other requirements. In the undergraduate EECE662 course (design of communication circuits) students build circuits operating to 100 MHz and above using Ivan Boards . These boards are available in the Electronics Shop in 2x2 and 2x3 inch formats, and provide a backside ground plane and a front-side grid on 0.1" centers for SMD component placement / soldering.
For higher frequencies (to 3 GHz and above), PC boards can be constructed, either in-house through the department's photo lab in Ward Hall, or via third-party vendors.For special applications, the department also has wire-bonding equipment and probe-station equipment that can be used for testing unpackaged discrete components and ICs.
RFIC Design and Fabrication
RF circuit design is rapidly moving from PC board level development using standard components, to embedding RF functions into larger systems using custom Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). Students at K-State can develop such ICs by taking courses in both the Communications and Solid-State Circuits option areas. K-State, like most schools within the country, uses the MOSIS service for fabrication. MOSIS provides access to state-of-the-art CMOS technologies ranging from 2 um to 0.25 um feature sizes, as well as the new Peregrine Semiconductor Silicon-on-Sapphire 0.5um technology which is optimized for RF and mixed-signal applications.
IC Gallery
Check out the IC Gallery for more photos of student/faculty designs.