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HOLLISTIC APPROACHES TO DESIGN HIGH SPEED ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS

Author
Aghasi, Hamidreza
Abstract
The most valuable asset we are given is time. This is perhaps the main motivation
behind the desire of human being to minimize the time that it takes for a
certain task to be completed. Starting from the middle of 20th century, electronic
components brought the hope to perform certain tasks faster than human brain
or other existing techniques. Today, we live in an era that billions of computations
are performed in less than a second and enormous amount of data can be
transmitted between people, thanks to the electronic circuits.
Operation frequency and computation time are the measures of speed in
modern electronics. Therefore, we like to find new approaches to push the limits
of operation with respect to these metrics. In this thesis, we introduce new
design approaches of high speed electronic circuits. The systematic design theory
in each chapter is verified by measurement results and compared with simulations.
Chapter 1 overviews the advances in each domain and highlights the
design challenges ahead of speed enhancement.
In chapters 2 and 3, a new harmonic power maximization theory is proposed
which leads to the design of high power active frequency multipliers with
record performance. It is shown that by characterizing the nonlinear behavior of
a transistor or any nonlinear element, circuit embedding can be selected to maximize the power at any desired harmonic. By exploiting this nonlinear model,
the design of millimeter wave and sub-millimeter wave circuits becomes more
power efficient and higher operation frequencies can be reached compared to
linear design approaches.
In Chapter 4, it is shown how emerging technologies such as spin-based devices
can outperform the existing technologies in terms of computation time.
Essentially, a systematic design of pattern recognition circuits using spin-based
devices is provided which is scalable and area efficient. It is shown that by combining
circuit design techniques with applied physics principles, these emerging
devices improve the existing technology in terms of operation speed, area,
and computation burden.
Chapter 5 and 6 highlight two collaboration projects of the author which
demonstrate the first terahertz phase-locked transmitter and the first integrated
negative inductance circuits. The implementation of these systems bridge the
gap between other research areas such as optics and the integrated circuit technology.
The findings of the thesis are concluded in Chapter 7.
Date Issued
2017-05-30Subject
Electrical engineering; Spintronics; BiCMOS Integrated Circuits; CMOS Integrated Circuits; mm-wave; RF; Terahertz; Electromagnetics
Committee Chair
Afshari, Ehsan
Committee Member
Apsel, Alyssa; Tang, Kevin
Degree Discipline
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Degree Name
Ph. D., Electrical and Computer Engineering
Degree Level
Doctor of Philosophy
Type
dissertation or thesis