This workshop presents the similarities and differences between wireless and wireline/optical communication along with circuit design innovations that enable the next generation of these systems. There are undeniable similarities between the systems and electronic building blocks in wireline/optical and wireless transceivers. In this event, first commonalities and differences of wireline/optical system versus an advanced wireless link will be discussed, next advanced modulation schemes to close the gap with Shannon limit in wireline links will be reviewed. Next, advanced circuit design techniques for wireless and optical transmitters, which is power amplifiers and modulator drivers will be presented. The last talk covers the optical and wireless receiver front-ends where novel circuit design techniques for low-noise, low-power LNAs and TIAs will be highlighted.

Integration of passive electromagnetic structures and particularly integration of antennas on silicon becomes feasible at frequencies above 100GHz due to wavelength-related size reduction. The goal of this workshop is to give inspiration on the various novel circuit techniques relying on conflation of passive and active devices. Furthermore, this workshop discusses potential emerging applications towards THz and presents the latest developments on integrated EM devices and co-design with active circuits at high mm-wave frequencies. We discuss how to realize passive on-chip components, such as transformers, coupler baluns and antennas and how to combine them with the active circuitry. Furhermore, novel techniques involving antennas to realize certain functions are discussed. Antennas can be co-designed synergistically with active circuits to realize novel hybrid antenna-electronics with “on-radiator” and near-field functions, such as power combining/splitting, impedance scaling/filtering, active load modulation, noise cancellation and reconfigurability. A significant research challenge in hybrid active circuit/electromagnetic electronics is the application of suitable multi-physics simulation tools and co-design/co-optimization methodologies. This requires 3D full-physics solutions for electromagnetic simulation. Several world renowned speakers will provide an overview on the techniques, applications and the practical design considerations on realization of these approaches. In this half-day workshop we will discuss emerging techniques for on-chip mm-wave active/passive circuit co-design and applications of these new techniques. Distinguished speakers from leading companies and academia will present a wide range of topics to cover various aspects of EM-circuit co-design. A brief concluding discussion will round-off the workshop to summarize the key learnings of aspects presented during the day.

Engineered surfaces and materials have shown interesting qualities in electromagnetic propagation that may be useful in various applications. Characteristics such as reflection, transmission, and absorption can be designed by control of properties including metal and dielectric geometry, material permittivity or refractive index, and consideration of phenomena such as surface-waves. New or reconsidered electromagnetic design perspectives, newly enabled geometries from additive manufacturing approaches, and new material compositions including flexible or tunable (such as phase-change) materials, present emerging opportunities for investigation. These areas of exploration may yield advances in communication and sensing ranging from microwave to optical frequencies — including potential applications in 5G and 6G technology.

Wireless systems with small RF bandwidths, high-order modulations, and advanced signal-processing techniques have reached a saturation point. They run into spectrum saturation and interference troubles under the sub-6GHz frequency band. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) announced the opening of 275GHz to 450GHz for super high data-rate communication applications. 5G is becoming a reality worldwide, and 6G is in a championship worldwide. The complete paradigm change of this new generation implies the evolution from today, and one of the elements to be defined will be the revolution in the transceiver functions: The data-rate is targeted beyond 100Gbps, and the carrier frequency to support such data transfer will be in the combination of mm-wave and sub-THz. In the 6G, the mm-wave/sub-THz front-end has challenges on bandwidth, power consumption, antenna coupling, array integration, etc. In this workshop, we also dedicate attention to silicon-based building blocks’ present realizations targeting 5G to 6G evolution.

The continued prevalence of microwave system techniques for interacting with superconducting transmon qubits and spin qubits have driven a resurgence of interest in cryogenic circuit and systems for quantum computing. Moreover, quantum computing applications demand low power, high scalability, and high precision in control signal generation and readout signal processing, which has led to several recent demonstrations of innovative system building blocks, as well as end-to-end control and readout chains. In this workshop, we introduce the state-of-the-art in system architectures for qubit control and readout, and then focus on the recent developments in technologies related to qubit readout. We will examine current building blocks found in high-end systems, then look at the next generation of high performance cryo-LNA technologies. Finally, we conclude with deep dives into full readout chain construction, and test and metrology for this very challenging ecosystem of components.

The RF Power Amplifier (PA) is a performance bottleneck of most RF wireless transmit systems and a critical design component of any RF system. Fundamental PA design knowledge and realization expertise are highly desired and regarded skills in the RF community. With their numerous process technologies, architectures, and implementation “tricks”, the design of RF PAs may quickly become overwhelming. Moreover, the knowledge is typically acquired through years of design experience and multiple failed design attempts. This workshop jump-starts you into the world of PA design by walking you through the various aspects of RF PA design, starting from the basics and then introducing the most popular forms of advanced PA architectures. The various tutorials within the workshop will categorize the different PA design methodologies to give you a better understanding behind their motivations. Experts from industry and academia will also summarize the strengths of various process technologies, enabling you to better select processes depending on your target application. Finally, PA designers with decades of experience will provide insight into successfully implementing RF PAs, including practical design aspects (“tricks of the trade”), accounting for PA memory and thermal effects (the big “gotcha”), and effectively simulating PA designs to closely predict performance. This workshop will provide design insights not obtained from textbook reading, thus benefiting those who are new to the RF PA design field and seasoned warriors who would like a rapid refresher.

Wireless networks have enabled socio-economic growth worldwide and are expected to further advance to foster new applications such as autonomous vehicles, virtual/augmented-reality, and smart cities. Due to limitations of further growth in capacity in the sub-6GHz spectrum, mm-wave and sub-Thz frequencies are gaining an important role in the emerging 6G and the communication-on-the-move applications. In 6G, RF/mm-wave/sub-THz front-ends have challenges on bandwidth, power consumption, antenna coupling, array integration, etc. We examine the integration technologies and packaging challenges. 6G covering from sub-10GHz to high frequency as well the complexity of systems is increasing, which demands implementations in the right technology (CMOS, SiGe, …) and integration of chipsets heterogeneously from basedband, transceiver to the antenna. The heterogeneous integration will be important with the multitude of frequency bands covered, eg 7–14GHz bands up to frequencies >100GHz.

The unique sensing capabilities of mm-wave radars bolstered by modern nano-scale silicon technology and advanced image processing has created the opportunity for integrated radar technology to create substantially improved image perception at a considerably lower size and cost compared to the radars of the 20th century. There is a growing effort in both academia and industry to bring this technology to fruition. In this workshop, we overview the existing opportunities in this field and the challenges that need to be overcome in order to standardize and commercialize integrated radar technology. The workshop brings together a complementary mix of top academic and industry speakers with a breadth of expertise and experience in this field ranging from the fundamental aspects of circuit design, system integration to sensor fusion, product design and testing.

There is no silver bullet power amplifier (PA) design that provides a one-size-fits-all solution for next-gen communication and sensing systems due to the diversity of applications and their associated PA specs (eg output power, linearity, bandwidth, and back-off efficiency). The goal of this workshop is to explore leading mm-wave and sub-THz applications and the associated PA specs for these systems. The applications of focus are massive MIMO and large-scale phased-arrays, sub-orbital satellite communication (SATCOM), and mm-wave radar. A balanced mix of both industry and academic perspectives will be provided, offering both a high-level familiarization of the application and associated specifications, along with deeper technical dives into PA design techniques in modern process nodes.

Interconnect bottlenecks have been a long-standing grand challenge over decades, caused by the increasing gap between exponentially growing data generation and transmission demand, and slowly-increasing supporting data bandwidth supply. Both Electrical Interconnect (EI) and Optical Interconnect (OI) have been investigated extensively to try to combat the challenge, however, both of them face their own inherent constraints. The newly emerging sub-THz/THz Interconnect (TI) aims to complement the existing EI and OI to close the interconnect gap. This workshop plans to bring experts from different domains, OI, EI, and emerging TI, to discuss the challenges, opportunities and best use scenarios of each interconnect scheme.

Owing to superior electrical and thermal properties of GaN-on-SiC material systems, tremendous progress has been made on GaN-based transistor and MMIC technologies. Advanced heterostructure material designs, epitaxial growth techniques, and transistor scaling processes enabled GaN MMICs to extend their applications from microwave to mm-wave frequencies (up to W-band). Next-generation RF systems require high efficiency and high linearity for more complex modulation schemes to support very high data-rates. The traditional trade-off among efficiency, linearity, and power density imposes performance limitations on GaN MMICs, which become more pronounced at mm-wave frequencies. In this workshop, world-leading experts will discuss the present status, challenges, and future perspective of mm-wave GaN transistor and MMIC technologies, covering emerging materials and devices, device modeling, thermal management, reliability, and circuit designs.

Wideband measurement and characterization techniques at microwave and mm-wave frequencies are becoming increasingly demanding to satisfy the specifications of the ever-evolving communications and radar industry. This workshop presents recent research and technology advancements from industry, research centers, and academia, by discussing relevant performance metrics and their experimental evaluation across different hardware platforms. Advanced characterization techniques are presented for transistors, power amplifiers, and beamformers, encompassing over-the-air testing, linearity, load-pull, and calibration of precision radar. The first half of the workshop is dedicated to state-of-the-art wideband device characterization techniques and load-pull. The second half of the workshop is focused on beamformers and over-the-air characterization techniques and standards. Both the morning and afternoon sessions of this workshop will end with open interactive discussions useful to outline future trends and research on these topics.

Advances in materials, fabrication, modeling, and test have enabled devices that achieve new functionality through coupling of multiple physical phenomena. These devices combine piezoelectric, ferroelectric, magnetostatic, acoustoelectric, and other physics to achieve performance beyond that of mass-produced bulk and surface-wave devices. These unique attributes provide potential for significant impact on future RF applications. Interactions between different types of physics provides coupling and exchange of energy between complementary mediums and modes. Examples include integrating piezoelectric and semiconductor materials to couple acoustic and electronic traveling waves, integrating ferromagnetic and piezoelectric materials to couple acoustic and magnetic domains, incorporating ferroelectric materials to change and tune piezoelectric orientation, and strain tuning of magnetostatic waves. Devices using these effects provide the potential for miniature high-Q tunable resonators and filters, non-reciprocal devices, and single-chip analog signal processors. This workshop will provide perspectives on the physics and application potential for these technologies.

Ultra-Low-Power (ULP) wireless communication technology provides many unique features over conventional wireless communication such as high energy efficiency, low cost, small form factor, large scale deployments, reconfigurability and simple architecture. This workshop will bring together experts from academia and industry to highlight recent works and applications in this exciting technology. In the first topic, we are going to review the industry impacts on the most successful and large-scale commercialization using ULP wireless communication technologies such as RFID and Near-Field Communication (NFC). After that, we are going to shift our focus to recent research advances in using RF backscattering techniques in Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS) and WLAN/BT connectivity solutions. In the last topic of this workshop, we will discuss recent advances from medical, industrial and academic fields in biomedical implants with technologies such as co-optimizing antenna and RFIC to miniaturize radio module volume. Unconventional wireless propagation methods are also introduced, such as body channel communication, Magnetoelectric, ultrasound, etc.

Thanks to the extended body biasing feature, FD-SOI process has enabled new system and circuit design techniques to improve the RF and mmW system performance drastically. Tremendous industry collaboration efforts have committed to bring up the FDSOI to higher volumes of production to serve the wireless, IoT, and automotive market in near future. This workshop includes an overview introductory presentation followed by 4 talks on FDSOI technology and its design examples for RF and mmW applications. The introduction provides the overview on FDSOI technology and its benefits for analog/RF/mmW circuit design, focusing on technology perspective. The following three talks demonstrate RF and mmW system design examples using FDSOI technology, for 5G as well as for ULP IoT. The last talk reveals the advanced FDSOI process design roadmap and what is to expect in near future.

This workshop will cover various recently developed technologies and the state-of-the-art performance in wafer-level integration and packaging technologies and manufacturing techniques with challenges and possible future directions and solutions. In particular, it will highlight the latest advances in the areas such as embedded wafer-level ball grid array (eWLB) technology for system integration with high Q interconnects and passives in thin-film Re-Distribution Layers (RDL), wafer-level heterogeneous integration of different substrates, BiCMOS embedded TSVs, sub-THz on-chip antenna integration, innovative Fan-Out technologies for wafer-level package, RF IPD, and FOSiP, and embedding various chips within the silicon Metal-Embedded Chip/Chiplet Assembly. Further, the workshop will present the practical realization of highly integrated systems, including 60GHz and 77GHz eWLB transceiver modules with integrated antennas, 3D wafer-level packaging for mm-wave and sub-mm-wave space systems, and hetero-integration technology solutions to enable a full 2D array of phased array systems above 120GHz.