Co-design of integrated Power Amplifier-Antenna Modules on Silicon Technologies for the Optimization of Power Efficiency
Within the wireless digital communication framework, data exchange speed (throughput) still remains as one of the characteristics that limits the system performance. Thus, exchange time reduction should have as outcome a system performance increase as well as the possibility of introducing new applications. Applications like " Wireless HD " that foresees an uncompressed high-definition wireless video transmission (throughput = 4 Gpps) or " Kiosk Downloading " that ensures a fast exchange (1 ¿ 2 Gbps) for short range (1 -2 m) and line of sight (LOS) scenarios. Speed augmentation is achieved by taking advantage of the 7-GHz bandwidth available on the 60-GHz band. Within the PANAMA project, special attention is given to the transmitting system efficiency (power amplifier ¿ antenna). Different strategies are developed and presented for a global efficiency increase. A considerable effort is particularly devoted to the connection PA ¿ antenna which gives rise to co-integration and co-design strategies. This study leads to address several issues: for instance active (PA) and passive (Antenna) co-simulation as well as millimeter-band antenna measurement. The high frequency considered in this work adds constraints to the system, particularly to the antenna performance. Consequently, it is also the objective of this work to study and propose antenna solutions that fulfill the application requirements. As a result, the dielectric resonator antenna is explored and originally configured to include another essential element of a complete integrated circuit solution: the package.