Psemi Corporation

Peregrine Semiconductor Corporation

Quintic Holdings

Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

Eric S Shapiro

Matt Allison

Payman Shanjani

Tero Tapio Ranta

Robert Mark Englekirk

Keith Bargroff

David Kovac

Christopher C Murphy

Jonathan James Klaren

Peter Bacon

Simon Edward Willard

Ravindranath D Shrivastava

Fleming Lam

John B Groe

Dan William Nobbe

Sinan Goktepeli

Emre Ayranci

Jeffrey A Dykstra

Poojan Wagh

Alper Genc

Michael Naone Farias

Jean-Luc Erb

William Joseph Jasper

Yuan Luo

Neil Calanca

David Ronald Kirkbride

Jay Kothari

Tran Kononova

Jacob Hamilton

Kim T Nguyen

Kouassi Sebastien Kouassi

Shishir Ray

Kazuhiko Shibata

Bias circuits and methods for silicon-based amplifier architectures that are tolerant of supply and bias voltage variations, bias current variations, and transistor stack height, and compensate for poor output resistance characteristics. Embodiments include power amplifiers and low-noise amplifiers that utilize a cascode reference circuit to bias the final stages of a cascode amplifier under the control of a closed loop bias control circuit. The closed loop bias control circuit ensures that the current in the cascode reference circuit is approximately equal to a selected multiple of a known current value by adjusting the gate bias voltage to the final stage of the cascode amplifier. The final current through the cascode amplifier is a multiple of the current in the cascode reference circuit, based on a device scaling factor representing the relative sizes of the transistor devices in the cascode amplifier and in the cascode reference circuit.

Cascode amplifier bias circuits

Implementing a series gate resistor in a switching circuit results in several performance improvements. Few examples are better insertion loss, lower breakdown voltage requirements and a lower frequency corner. These benefits come at the expense of a slower switching time. Methods and devices offering solutions to this problem are described. Using a concept of bypassing the series gate resistor during transition time, a fast switching time can be achieved while the above-mentioned performance improvements are maintained.

Methods and devices to improve switching time by bypassing gate resistor

A FET switch stack and a method to operate a FET switch stack. The FET switch stack includes a stacked arrangement of body bypass FET switches connected across respective common body resistors. The body bypass FET switches bypass the respective common body resistors during the OFF steady state of the FET switch stack and do not bypass the respective common body resistors during the ON steady state.

Body resistor bypass for RF FET switch stack

Methods and devices to address the undesired DC voltage distribution across switch stacks in OFF state are disclosed. The disclosed devices include charge control elements that sample the RF signal to generate superimposed voltages at specific points of the switch stack biasing circuit. The provided voltages help reducing the drooping voltages on drain/source/body terminals of the transistors within the stack by supplying the current drawn by drain/source terminals of the stacked transistors and/or by sinking the body leakage current exiting the body terminals of such transistors. Methods and techniques teaching how to provide proper tapping points in the biasing circuit to sample the RF signal are also disclosed.

RF switch stack with charge control elements

A phase shifter unit cell or a connected set of such cells that can be well isolated from external circuitry and which do not introduce insertion loss into an RF signal path, exhibit good return loss, and further provides additional advantages when combined with bracketing attenuator circuits. More particularly, embodiments integrate a high-isolation function within a phase shifter circuit by breaking the complimentary nature of the control signals to a phase shifter cell to provide greater control of switch states internal to the phase shifter cell and thus enable a distinct high-isolation state, and by including a switchable shunt termination resistor for use in the high-isolation state. Some embodiments are serially coupled to attenuator circuits to enable synergistic interaction that reduces overall die size and/or increases isolation. One such embodiment positions a high-isolation phase shifter cell in accordance with the present invention between bracketing programmable attenuators.

Integrated and combined phase shifter and isolation switch

Method and devices to reduce integrated circuit fabrication process yield loss due to undesired interactions between PCMs and the wafer test probes during wafer sorting tests are disclosed. The described methods entail the use of a properly patterned metal layer on the PCM dies adjacent to the product dies under test. Such patterned metal layers shield traces of the wafer probes from the circuits of the PCM dies. Various exemplary metal layer patterns are also presented.

PCM metal shielding for wafer testing

Implementing a series gate resistor in a switching circuit results in several performance improvements. Few examples are better insertion loss, lower breakdown voltage requirements and a lower frequency corner. These benefits come at the expense of a slower switching time. Methods and devices offering solutions to this problem are described. Using a concept of bypassing the series gate resistor during transition time, a fast switching time can be achieved while the abovementioned performance improvements are maintained.

A common gate resistor bypass arrangement for a stacked arrangement of FET switches, the arrangement including a series combination of an nMOS transistor and a pMOS transistor connected across a common gate resistor. During at least a transition portion of the transition state of the stacked arrangement of FET switches, the nMOS transistor and the pMOS transistor are both in an ON state and bypass the common gate resistor. On the other hand, during at least a steady state portion of the ON steady state and the OFF steady state of the stacked arrangement of FET switches, one of the nMOS transistor and the pMOS transistor is in an OFF state and the other of the nMOS transistor and the pMOS transistor is in an ON state, thus not bypassing the common gate resistor.

Gate resistor bypass for RF FET switch stack

A high throw-count multiple-pole FET-based RF switch architecture that provides good RF performance in terms of insertion loss, return loss, isolation, linearity, and power handling. A common port RFC is coupled along a common path to multiple ports RFn. Embodiments introduce additional common RF path branch isolation switches which are controlled by state dependent logic. The branch isolation switches help to isolate the unused branch ports RFn and the unused portion of the common path from the active portion of the common path, and thereby reduce the reactive load attributable to such branches that degrades RF performance of the ports RFn 'closer' to the common port RFC. The branch isolation switches can also be used to reconfigure the switch architecture for a multiplex function as well as separate switch path banks for re-configurability of purpose, tuning, or varying switch throw counts and packaging options.

High throw-count RF switch

Growing community of inventors

San Diego, CA, United States of America

Eric S Shapiro