Millimeter-wave CMOS digital controlled artificial dielectric differential mode transmission lines for reconfigurable ICs

Abstract

Digital control of the effective dielectric constant of a differential mode transmission line is shown up to 60GHz in standard CMOS technology. The effective dielectric constant is shown to increase from 5 to over 50 for the fixed artificial dielectric case. The digital controlled artificial dielectric transmission line (DiCAD) uses MOS switches to dynamically control the phase. DiCAD achieves 50% of the physically available tuning range with effective dielectric constants varying between 7 and 28. Measured results favorably agree with full-wave electromagnetic simulations.