Workshops and Short Courses

Both, CMOS FinFET and FD-SOI are the enabling technology that allows nanoscale CMOS beyond 20nm. This technological revolution does not only allow highest integration density for high volume products at low cost. Due to the fundamental change how a transistor is built, there is impact on its characteristics as e.g., Ft, Vt, VDD. Considering this change, traditional and well-known circuits and architectures need to adapted or even be invented. This workshop gives an overview of novel architectures and designs in the context of RF and millimeter wave that benefit from FinFET and FD-SOI technologies. In several presentations trends, design challenges, and how these are overcome supported by application/circuit examples are shown. Furthermore, commoditization of 4G and emerging 5G cellular systems have continued to push application of advanced Si/SiGe and SOI technology for integration, performance, and cost. This workshop discuss the challenges and trade-offs of various Si-based technologies for 5G cellular application, their respective modeling, automated design and layout perspectives for successful productization.

Quantum computers (QCs) hold the promise to change computing as we know it today. What is generally not discussed is the importance of classical electronics to support a QC's computational core: the qubit. In this workshop, we look at the requirements of electronic circuits and systems supporting qubits, with a special interest in scalability issues and silicon (CMOS, SiGe, ...) compatibility of quantum-classical computing systems. World experts in the field will present their work and their vision for a possibly integrated QC of the future, often reflecting on architectural and design issues, with a keen interest in the design of high-speed and RF circuits and systems sought by QC architects. Finally, we will look at other applications that could benefit from qubits and, in general, quantum technologies, from the perspective of classical readout and control CMOS circuits and systems operating at cryogenic temperatures (Cryo-CMOS). We will conclude with a general vision of the field and its trends as well as perspectives for the future.

Fifth Generation (5G) systems are expected to represent a major revolution in mobile wireless technologies. The focus of this workshop is on 5G systems that will operate at mm-wave frequencies (28-80GHz) and may employ massive MIMO, in order to achieve enhanced data rates, higher spectral efficiency, extended battery life, and low system latency.
Aspects that will be addressed are: system architecture, power-amplifier (PA) design, circuit techniques, technology choices, front-end and antenna interfaces, user equipment/basestation. Moreover, This workshop brings together the advocates and experts of both bulk, SOI and SiGe, as well as GaN and other technologies, to explain in which cases their preferred technology is the right choice.

With the advent of nano-scale CMOS technology, exciting new developments have recently taken place in the field of RF and mm-wave transmitters, receivers and frequency synthesizers.
The low-voltage, fast speed, fine feature-size and low cost of the new technology have forever changed the way we design circuits, architectures and systems. Not only the RF/mm-wave circuits have taken different shapes from what has been taught in textbooks but also their integration with digital processors have enabled new possibilities for digital assistance.
The motivation of this workshop is to capture what is the state at the edge of technology, what is the demand of the industry in the context of high volume products, as well, what are circuit and architectural concepts that are demanded or enforced by the technology.
We focus especially on circuit enabling extreme bandwidth using various techniques including MIMO, analog/digital signal processing, novel high-rate ADCs, techniques for channel bonding, carrier aggregation to reach data rates far beyond what it is achievable nowadays.

Recent advances in millimeter-wave and THz silicon technology have drawn strong interest in the RF community. Mm-wave sensors and THz imagers are becoming essential building blocks in several application domains: for example, in the automotive industry, mm-wave radars are considered a key component for safety critical applications and autonomous driving cars. In the industrial world, drones and robotics will rely on such sensors to avoid obstacles or complete complex tasks. In the medical and pharmaceutical industry, THz prototypes find application in home patient monitoring, high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy. This workshop aims at covering the state of the art and the future development trends including FMCW and MIMO radars, as well as THz imagers. This includes silicon and systems operating at carriers beyond 30 GHz. Distinguished speakers from industry and academia will highlight system requirements, technology advances, challenges and solutions for implementations on system and silicon level.

The complexity of the conventional RF front-end SAW/BAW filtering and switching is the biggest hurdle in the pursuit of a true wideband software-defined radio for high performance wireless applications. It is also a challenge for many IoT systems with application-specific size or cost restrictions. Therefore, there have been serious efforts from the RFIC community to come up with RF filtering techniques, that are suitable for CMOS integration.
After more than a decade of promising research results, some of these techniques are starting to be used in mass market products.
In this workshop, experts from academic, industry, and federal research institutions will present the state-of-the art in the area of CMOS-integrated RF filtering such as N-path filters, electrical balance duplexers, and various linear periodic time varying (LPTV) systems that has been used, for example, to implement a fully-integrated non-magnetic CMOS circulator.
Moreover, the commercial state-of-the art performance of SAW/BAW technology and tunable RF components will be presented as a point of reference. Finally, the workshop will conclude with an interactive panel discussion about the potential and limitations of CMOS integrated RF filtering.

This workshop will focus on wireless systems demanding high performance local oscillators and clock generators. This includes cellular infrastructure, wireless backhauling, mm-wave radar and imaging, data converters for communication systems. In all these applications, it would be desirable to implement the whole system in the same silicon technology process, while achieving low integrated phase noise (<1deg) and noise floor at mm-wave, low reference and integer boundary spurs (<90dBc). State-of-the-art RF to THz synthesizer architectures and building block details will be covered, including phase-locked loops, frequency doubler/tripler, injection locked divider, lock distribution etc. Advanced PLL architectures such as inductor-less PLLs, SSPLL, ILPLL will also be discussed. In addition, this workshop will discuss the fundamentals of digital PLLs as well as the latest advancements in the field. Digital PLLs have great scalability and easy portability to new CMOS process nodes, and have today a wide range of application from wireless to wireline systems, not limited to the GHz frequency range but spanning up to the millimeter-wave range. The workshop will introduce the main concepts to analyze and design digital PLLs, taking into account system design constraints, quantization noise and design of the mixed-blocks such as the DCO and the TDC. State-of-the-art techniques will be discussed, such as new architectures, TDCs and DCOs with high figure of merit, and digital-to-time converters.

The ubiquitous wireless connectivity keeps driving the development of high-performance/low-power wireless systems and building blocks for next generation transceivers.
Today, the best and faster performances are provided by the 802.11ac standard, delivering speeds up to several Gbps. To achieve these data rate levels, the 11ac works exclusively in the 5 GHz band in which wide bandwidths (80/160 MHz) are available. Nevertheless, to improve the speed, the next generation, the 802.11 ax, answers this issue precisely: this technology will allow to quadruple the average data rate per user in a dense environment. The 11ax standard uses both 2.4 & 5GHz bands, wide channels (40 MHz, 80 MHz & 160 MHz) and high order modulations (1024 QAM).
The key technologies will be presented on how to achieve wider bandwidth, higher linearity, lower power consumption, better EVM, and highly integration, such as fulfilling the requirements of 802.11ax standard. Moreover, the workshop will present/discuss digital and mixed-signal techniques for correcting RF and analog imperfections of a WLAN transceiver circuits.

The “wireless revolution” is forcing the wireless industry to bring down consumer cost for wireless devices, while simultaneously increasing speed and performance. Consequently, RF transceivers are being implemented in CMOS digital integrated circuit (IC) processes. But, this poses design challenges for achieving watt-level RF power transmission that meets the spectral purity requirements of future wideband wireless communications. This workshop discusses the state-of-the-art architectures and trends for achieving RF power across the fields of devices, circuits and systems. We will explore options for power amplifiers (PAs) from the device level with presentations on GaN devices, to the power amplifier level, with presentations on CMOS and GaN PAs for emerging wireless communications solutions frequencies, and to the system level, with presentations on employing envelope tracking and on approaches for system level linearization.

Abstract: This workshop discusses advanced manufacturing, packaging and testing techniques for mmWave systems. Topics include plastic waveguides, on-chip antenna arrays, wafer scale integration, as well as calibration and testing issues. New approaches for in-situ measurement of individual element’s response in large phased array systems are also presented. The workshop aims to bring together experts from academia, industry and research labs to discuss the implementation and testing challenges and solutions for next generation wireless applications.

With significant advances in digital CMOS and fTs reaching 300GHz, the direct digital-to-RF interface as well as early digitization becomes an increasingly more viable solution. RF systems hence increasingly use data-converters closer to the RF-port, as Moore’s law makes digital signal processing in CMOS ever more powerful and cost effective. Direct digitization/analogization is still feasible only for certain applications, as dynamic range and speed requirements of the ADC and DAC often lead to a feasibility or power bottleneck. This workshop will review the state-of-the-art and trends in highly digital RF systems, highlighting key design challenges in different application domains as well as architectural solutions to address them. Techniques like channelization and time/frequency interleaving that can relax ADC and DAC requirements will be discussed as well as application examples. Finally, the workshop will review photonics-based data converters as they offer a compelling solution to the performance bounds set by sampling clock jitter.

INTERNET-OF-THINGS (IOT) is regarded as one important part of the future 5G mobile communication, and draws much attention from both academia and industry in recent years. Due to the expansion of IoT and especially wearable sensors, remote personal monitoring based on the huge amount of real-time data streams has become a huge trend in the healthcare and wellbeing domains. IoT edge nodes continue to integrate increasingly complex sensing, compute, and connectivity capabilities into smaller form factors, while pursuing energy autonomy through multi-modal energy harvesting. This workshop explores the IOT designer’s perspective on RFIC front-end, system designs/innovations, antenna/antenna-array designs, integrated sensors, packaging designs, as well as leading edge solutions available to energy harvesting, power management, etc.

Radiometers precisely measure the electromagnetic radiation that is passively emitted by physical media. At microwave and millimeter-wave frequencies, radiometers can provide useful remote sensing observations under adverse conditions (rain, fog, etc.) and without external illumination where infrared and optical sensors fail. Over the past decade, both the underlying semiconductor technologies and the application spaces of radiometers have evolved significantly.
The continued performance increases of advanced node CMOS and scaled SiGe HBTs have enabled the development of radiometers for applications requiring low cost, high volume, and miniaturization. In addition, the recent development of terahertz InP/InGaAs HEMTs have enabled high-resolution radiometry at previously inaccessible frequencies. These advances necessitate a re-evaluation of architecture and technology tradeoffs to fully leverage the unique capabilities enabled by these technologies. Furthermore, while radiometers have traditionally been limited to use in niche scientific and military applications, the application spaces of these systems have grown substantially. Passive imaging systems are now widely implemented for public security, and noninvasive subcutaneous sensing radiometers are increasingly utilized for medical applications. In addition, the proliferation of CubeSats has created a demand for highly integrated radiometers which can enable continuous observations of the Earth’s atmosphere and yield improved weather forecasting and climate modeling.
This workshop will discuss radiometer theory and system architectures, and will highlight current state-of-the-art microwave and millimeter-wave radiometers in security imaging and scientific applications. A comparison of these systems will show the how the varying application spaces impose requirements which flow down through the system architecture and component designs to the semiconductor technologies. Calibration procedures and techniques for validating, operating, and ensuring accurate data retrieval from these systems will also be discussed.

The workshop addresses general issues related to the development of implantable and wearable systems, with a specific focus on healthcare and medical applications. To start with, the use of wireless implantable devices for both power and data transmission is addressed. This includes a scientific review dealing with the problem of communicating between implants and externals whereby crossing human tissue layers (biological matter is a hostile environment for radiofrequency-based communication). As per wearable systems, topics covered include ultra-low-power microwave components and systems, epidermal radioelectronics, eco-compatible substrates for minimally-invasive wearable devices, harvesting issues in the case of miniaturized wearable devices, as well as technological key-factors like the use of 3D/4D inkjet printing for manufacturing. In a nutshell, the workshop provides an extensive overview covering the main theoretical background and technological key-points for cutting-edge research and applications in the addressed area. A panel discussion will conclude the event stimulating interactions among attendees, speakers and chairmen.

Medical imaging techniques are fundamental for modern health care. The various established imaging techniques work very well in most cases, but all do have certain limitations. Sometimes they simply cannot deliver good images because there is no physical contrast effect due to low interaction between the object and the used signal, e.g. soft matter not visible in x-rays. And many times these very expensive devices are not available in sufficient number, are not portable or it is simply too expensive to take continuously images in short intervals. Especially for future Point-of-care applications it is desirable to have cheaper systems, capable of taking images at the bedside or monitor changing medical conditions over prolonged times. New microwave to THz imaging approaches offer these and even more possibilities which will not replace existing techniques but rather complement them. This workshop features imaging applications using microwave, mm-wave and THz systems for medical applications. Both sides, the theory and system design as well as the real clinical application including measurements and case studies are presented. Both areas are not treated separately but closely linked in the workshop having contributions from academia and industry with strong cooperation in between. Practitioners as well as researchers will present their results for a broad audience aiming to address the needs of electrical engineers as well as medical staff interested in the possibilities of this emerging area, the technology behind and inherent limitations. Medical applications include functional neuroimaging, diagnostic of stroke, traumatic brain injuries, burn wound assessment, surgical flap viability monitoring, breast cancer detection and ablation monitoring. Joint this workshop, have your questions answered and get in touch with renowned experts in this field during presentations and discussions.

In this workshop, the particular importance and associated opportunities of additively manufactured radio- frequency (RF) components and modules for Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, Smart Skin and millimeter-wave ubiquitous sensing applications is thoroughly discussed. First, the current advances and capabilities of additive manufacturing (AM) tools are presented. Then, completely printed chipless radio-frequency identification (RFID), RF sensing and RF communication systems, and their current capabilities and limitations are reported. The focus is then shifted toward more complex backscattering energy autonomous RF structures. For each of the essential components of these structures, that encompass energy harvesting and storage, backscattering front ends, passive components, interconnects, packaging, shape-chaging (4-D printed) topologies and sensing elements, current trends are described and representative state- of-the-art examples reported. Finally, the results of this analysis are used to argue for the unique appeal of AM RF components and systems toward empowering a technological revolution of cost- efficient dense and ubiquitous IoT implementations.

Proposed standards for 5G communications utilize mmW frequency bands (>28 GHz) whereas current 4G technology still operates below 6 GHz. Power amplifier performance capability will be a critical component for developing specifications for 5G base stations and handsets. In addition to cost considerations, efforts to increase linearity and improve efficiency for systems with higher order amplitude modulation will be emphasized.
Over the past decade, significant improvements in GaN technologies and further maturation of GaAs, CMOS and SiGe processes have enabled the potential for low cost production of mmW power amplifiers. Also, efficiency enhancement techniques such as Dougherty, Chireix outphasing and supply modulation are enabling amplification of signals with high peak-to-average power ratios (PAPR) such as 64QAM and 256QAM. With the frequency of operation increasing by an order of magnitude, amplifier architectures and device technologies will need to be re-evaluated to determine the proper balance between cost and overall system performance. Because the number of proposed bands widely varies and ranges from 28 to 71 GHz, there will be possibilities for multiple types of power amplifiers operating at different powers levels and frequencies.
The goal of this workshop is to present a comparison of different material systems, such as GaAs, SiGe, CMOS, InP GaN on SiC and GaN on Si, especially in terms of process maturity and cost, as well as performance at higher frequencies.

This workshop overviews the recent advancements in digital pre-distortion (DPD) and digital post-correction (DPC) techniques over a broad range of spectrum from DC to mmWave. Beyond the classical DPD applications on wireless and satellite power amplifier linearization, this workshop will culminate the applications of the DPD and DPC techniques for wireline and optical communications. With wireline communication, to advance the data rate limit, designers are leveraging a high-order modulation, which requires a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) based transmitter along with an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) based receiver. Since the poor linearity of high-speed data converters often becomes a performance bottleneck with such high performance wireline transceivers and also with wireline MIMO transceivers, DPC and DPD techniques become essential not only to the equalization of nonideal lossy channels but also to the linearization of nonlinearities in high-speed circuit elements. As the recent trend of using a high-order wideband modulation continues with Tb/s coherent optical communication, fiber nonlinearity has become a critical design challenge. A robust and low-power implementation of DPC and DPD, which includes the realization of nonlinearity tolerant modulation and coding schemes as well as adaptive pre-emphasis and equalization, is becoming increasingly important. This workshop for the first time brings together researchers from industry and academic working on diverse DPD and DPC techniques in wireless, wireline, and optical communications in one place, revisiting the fundamental principles in common as well as providing a unique opportunity to learn from cross-platform implementations.

In the microwave regime the interaction between electromagnetic fields and biological cells is characterised by strong dielectric dispersion and field penetration of the matter. The resulting biological effects are classified into thermal and non-thermal effects and their understanding is the basis for the engineering of tailored analysis tools and applicators for cell biology.
Due to the nature of the electromagnetic fields, the interaction between fields and cells is per se contactless. By proper power control, it is non-destructive, and thus by applying dielectric spectroscopy, a label free cell analysis method can be implemented. This analysis technique is highly flexible since it can be applied to a large number of cells in suspension as well as for the investigation of single cells, whereby it is possible to resolve sub-cellular structures.
Besides this sensing functionality, electrokinetic forces can be used to imprint mechanical forces on cells. There are several well established applications for forced cell movement e.g. for analysis or sorting. Forces can also be applied only to parts of cells e.g. the membrane by using CW or pulsed high frequency signals, in order to form temporary pores for the uptake of exogenous molecules.
With the evolution in these applications, more detailed modeling of the interactions between microwave EM fields and cells is needed, which requires the simultaneous consideration of thermal effects, effects of flow, cell morphology and deformation, etc.
For the realization of devices in commercially attractive lab-on-a-chip setups the integration of CMOS circuits and microfluidics offers a powerful platform. This technology even allows for multi-sensor integration e.g. for dielectric and mechanical sensors and real time characterization of cells.
The workshops intends to exemplarily highlight the state of the art in this fascinating field of research to motivate a scientific discussion on existing and future developments.

The proposed workshop will discuss the recent advances in efficiency and linearity enhancement techniques for RF power amplification to use in modern and future generation wireless communication systems. These include both high-efficiency load-network techniques in power amplifiers such as Class F and Class E and their combinations and approximations using embedding and de-embedding nonlinear device models and advanced high-efficiency transmitter architectures based on envelope tracking, broadband Doherty, multi-level outphasing, and other load-modulated techniques using different technologies and at different frequencies including millimeter waves. Modern trends in system-level approaches including power amplifier behavioral modeling and analog/digital linearization schemes including multi-band/multi-channel power amplifier linearization will also be discussed.

With the advent of 5G communication era, there is huge upcoming requirement of high data rate for supporting heterogeneous network. The key requirement such as spectrum efficient modulation schemes, multiple access techniques and carrier aggregation etc. are under investigation to handle spectral as well as energy efficient radio transmission. In particular, the radio frequency (RF) and microwave power amplifiers (PAs) and transmitters should meet these challenges of high bandwidth and efficiency. This essentially requires innovations in the area of nonlinear design and characterization to develop new generation of PAs and transmitters.
This workshop will focus on the new areas explored in non-linear vector analysis and its application in developing new strategies for enhancing the PA and transmitter design. This will particularly focus on non-linear device characterization and measurement challenges for catering to the needs of 5G communication standards. The workshop will focus on following key areas targeting the demands of 5G applications:
(1) Broadband nonlinear measurements with NVNA and high efficiency PA design for handling wideband modulated signals with high crest factor.
(2) Non-linear device characterization, modeling and PA design based on non-linear embedding and other novel techniques.
(3) New digital schemes and architectures for developing non-linear behavioral model and linearization of broadband PA and wireless transmitters for 5G applications.
In addition to the above key areas, this workshop will also address the challenges in developing new digital radio front ends and massive MIMO platforms for high speed data link and throughput.
This workshop will bring together some of the leading world experts to present the novel measurement techniques and associated PA as well as linearized transmitter design schemes to cater to the upcoming needs of 5G communication.

SiGe and CMOS has allowed for a ten-fold reduction in the cost of phased-array systems, and systems employing silicon beamformer chips are currently being developed for SATCOM and terrestrial point-to-point systems. This workshop presents the latest work in this area, and covers chip development, antenna development, phased-array systems, built-in-test, and several system-level demonstrators. It is shown that state-of-the-art systems can be built using silicon technologies, and that affordable phased-arrays with thousands of elements are becoming a reality.

The march toward autonomous, self-driving cars and trucks is moving faster than anyone could have imagined. The future is a sensor-laden vehicle loaded with LIDAR, optical cameras, and nearly a half-dozen radars. Sensors will be relied on to safely navigate the vehicle on roads both urban and rural, including high speed interstates, congested city streets, and rural back roads. Car manufacturers are investing heavily in the technology as are the ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft.
In June, 2016 a Tesla Model S self-driving car was involved in a crash with a tractor-trailer and the driver was killed. It is believed that the cause of the crash was a malfunctioning optical sensor. This example demonstrates how critical sensors are to the safe operation of the car. Now, instead of a hardware failure, imagine what could have happened if a third party were to launch an attack and intentionally disrupt the sensor’s operation? A variety of methods are available: (1) jamming, the transmission of RF signals (in the case of radar) to interfere with the radar, (2) spoofing, the replication and retransmission of radar transmit signals designed to provide false information and to corrupt data, and (3) interference, the intentional or unintentional modification or disruption of a radar signal due to unwanted signals such as signals from different automotive radars.
IMS has been very successful in drawing the best speakers and organizing very strong workshops on the latest advancements in MMW radar technology. That said, virtually nothing has been said about security issues in automotive systems such as radar and dedicated short range communications systems. This workshop is focused on starting the conversation about this important topic. Four very knowledgeable speakers with expertise in the security aspects of these complex systems will address these critical issues

Wireless communication, radar and electronic warfare systems are entering a new era in which the need for advanced functionality, low SWaP and low cost set contradicting requirements for their RF front-ends. In particular, the RF front-ends’ SWaP is limited by their non-reciprocal counter parts (e.g RF circulators, isolators) which either need large volume and external biasing in ferrite-based schemes or exhibit poor noise figure, power handling and dynamic range in active-based non-magnetic architectures. In order to overcome the aforementioned limitations, innovations are required in the areas of materials, process integration and modeling. Among them, the realization of devices that do not require magnetic biasing and are suitable for monolithic integration are of critical importance. It is the aim of this workshop to present recent progress in these areas by both academic and industry experts. In addition, recent developments in non-linear RF devices that exploit the presence of spin-waves in magnetic materials (i.e, frequency selective limiters and signal-to-noise enhancers) will also be presented. The first part of this workshop will focus on architectures and concepts that facilitate non-reciprocity by means of novel RF-design techniques using spatiotemporal modulation. New classes of non-reciprocal and non-linear RF devices including circulators, isolators, gyrators and antennas will be presented. The second part will focus on the design and monolithic integration of magnetic devices using self-biased materials as well as spinwave-based RF components. Lastly, recent progress on magnetic miniaturized and monolithically integrated components (M3IC), a research effort that has been initiated and supported by DARPA will also be presented.

Today's microwave communication hardware manufacturers face more than ever the often contradictory
challenges to provide filtering equipments with a reduced footprint, exhibiting high selectivity at the edges of the pass-bands, possibly with the lowest losses, and all this of course at minimal cost. Once the choice of a particular technology has been met, often dictated by the implementation of the end application, the remaining optimization margin resides essentially in the selected synthesis technique used to design and tune the hardware. In this workshop we will focus on advanced design procedures dedicated, in particular, to the reduction of the hardware's footprint. For example design procedures allowing the manufacturing
of inline filters implementing transmission zeros for highly selective responses will be presented, as well as the use of multi-mode cavities for the realisation of mult-iband filters and multiplexers will be presented. Advanced synthesis and tuning techniques for the design of waveguide filters and multiplexers, used for example in space applications where the size issue is particularly acute and a co-design
technique for antenna filters that allows to implement the matching network within the filtering device itself will also be detailed.

Continued expansion of the internet of things (IoT) into more and ever smaller devices requires development of low power and ultra low power communications radios. The receivers for these devices can be particularly challenging as they seek to increase sensitivity in a noisy and interference filled environment while maintaining low dc power levels needed to maximize time between battery charges or to enable the complete elimination of the battery all together in favor of energy harvesting. Many of these devices are parts of sensor nodes, which spend the majority of their time in an asleep-yet-alert state where a wakeup receiver is the only powered on block. In such scenarios, the power consumption of the receiver can become the dominant power consumer of the entire node. While much of the work up to this point has been in CMOS integrated circuits, new research in other technologies such as MEMs based receivers also show promise for the future. This workshop will address the design challenges associated with developing low power receivers for IoT applications including tradeoffs between RF frequency, data rate, sensitivity, power, and technology. Prominent researchers from both academia and industry will give insight into their individual design philosophy and vision for where the field is headed, followed by a moderated panel discussion to try to reconcile differences in their visions and take additional questions from attendee.

The 5th generation (5G) wireless systems are the proposed telecommunication standards, which offer the next major disruptive technological step in mobile communications. The future 5G systems aim at much higher data rates, higher density of mobiles users, lower network latency, spectral efficiency and enhanced signaling compared to the existing 4G systems. To achieve these goals, the operation will be extended to new frequency bands at mm-wave frequencies. Additionally, massive MIMO systems and novel system architectures like digital, hybrid or analog beamforming are expected to be extensively employed. Therefore, major research efforts towards 5G are focusing nowadays on RF front-ends beamforming transceivers and antenna arrays at mm-wave frequencies. Numerous new technological challenges need to be resolved not only on the level of portable user equipment (UE), but also on the level of wireless radio access networks (RAN) and backhaul, including macro-, micro and pico-cells. Particularly, the RAN infrastructure needs to support for 5G much higher data rates and enormous amount of data, as required by enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) applications.
The goal of this full-day workshop is to address the transition from the current state-of-the-art 4G systems towards 5G with a particular focus on challenges related to hardware implementation of RF Front-End Modules (FEMs), beamforming transceivers and antenna arrays. Speakers from leading companies and academia will present several aspects related to semiconductor technology choice, circuit design techniques, novel system architectures, packaging, antenna arrays and network considerations. The talks will distinguish between challenges related to mobile radio user-equipment on the one hand, but also on the base-stations and backhaul networks on the other hand. A brief concluding discussion will round-off the workshop to summarize the key learnings on the wide range of aspects presented during the day.

With the rapid development of the current and next generation communications (i.e., 5G wireless, internet-of-everything, and so on), multi-band and multifunction transceivers to meet the requirements of such system remain as great challenges. Thus, frequency and bandwidth tunable passive circuits with high performance as key elements in multi-band systems are dramatically demanded and highly developed based on novel materials, miniaturized structures and specific technologies, which can be utilized for the implementation of multi-band RF, microwave, millimeter-wave, and THz communication systems. This unique workshop focuses, for the first time, on the area of various tunable multi-band passive circuits by reporting recent research findings with the coverage of new materials, design techniques, and various technologies in this exciting field. This includes tunable passives with the application of ferromagnetic and ferroelectric thin films, phase change materials, liquid metal loaded technology, micro-electromechanical-system (MEMS), as well as other state-of-art design techniques for multiband operation. Meanwhile, novel on-chip tunable passive circuits (e.g., phase shifter) for 5G wireless communication system using advanced CMOS and SiGe are reported, which are widely used in the practical application of RF, microwave, mm-wave, and THz integrated circuits. The metamaterial and plasmonic devices are also introduced for compact CMOS passive integration. Furthermore, multi-function filtering components and integrated antenna sub-system, along with SAW-based-resonator technologies for the realization of advanced compact microwave filtering devices, are described. Recent advances on reconfigurable and multi-band filters in 3-D and substrate-integrated technologies are also presented.

Linearity is now a required specification in many power amplifier designs. Linearization techniques are being applied to achieve these specifications; for example, digital pre-distortion (DPD) is now ubiquitous in cellular wireless downlink base-station transmitters. As the demand for data continues to rise, features such as increased bandwidths, increased frequencies, and use of spectrally-efficient communications signals are being deployed to meet this demand. These features place significant challenges on the linearization techniques employed, and new techniques have been and continue to be developed to meet these challenges.
In this workshop we shall review some recent advances in algorithmic techniques and approaches, system design, and practical software and hardware implementations of linearization systems for next-generation wireless communications. We shall address multi-carrier and multi-band communications, wide bandwidths, high peak-to-average power ratio signals, from RF through millimeter-wave, with applications in cellular wireless, satellite communications, uplink and downlink, small-cell and macro base stations, backhaul, point-to-point radio. The workshop will host speakers with world-class reputations from academia and industry, and also showcase some recent research developments. We are planning to have demonstrations of practical state-of-the-art commercial systems. This will be an advanced workshop, for academics and industry professionals active in linearization & DPD development for RF, microwave, and millimeter-wave applications.

Rapidly growing demand for broadband cellular data traffic is driving fifth generation (5G) standardization towards deployment by 2020. One anticipated key to enabling gigabit-per-second 5G speeds is Millimeter-wave (mm-wave) operation. mm-wave bands offer 50 times the bandwidth available in existing RF bands but pose numerous technical challenges to the low-cost deployment of radio solutions. U.S. regulators recently issued a notice of inquiry for provision of mobile services in several frequency bands above 24 GHz. Additionally, reliable coverage over the typical 200 meter cell radius in non-line-of-sight dense urban conditions, and practical antenna array solutions for base station and user equipment (UE) have been demonstrated at 28 GHz and other mm-wave frequencies. High-volume implementation of the UE radio is also envisioned as multiple-element phased-array transceiver in silicon and/or III-V technologies. However, packaging constitutes a great technical challenge as co-design and co-integration of the transceiver and package will be critical in meeting both electrical and thermo-mechanical requirements in various applications ranging from handsets and backhaul radios to base stations.
This workshop will focus on gathering a combination of academic and industry experts in mm-wave system integration and packaging to discuss novel integrated circuits, modules, and antenna solutions for potential mm-wave 5G radios. The speakers will present state-of-the-art research results in this area and ultimately help participants identify the enabling radio and packaging technologies for 5G cellular communications. Emphasis will be put on novel 3D integration approaches and advanced mm-wave system-on-package architectures based on IC/Package/antenna co-optimization. Novel materials and thermo-mechanical challenges associated with compact and large phased array systems in silicon and III-V technologies will also be discussed for 5G radios in different mm-wave frequency bands including 28 GHz, 39 GHz, 69 GHz, 67 GHz, 73 GHz and forward-looking frequencies above 90 GHz.

Front-end reconfigurability is becoming one of the most critical functions of wireless communication systems. While semiconductor technology has advanced considerably over the past years, the technology still suffers from series limitations, which limits its use in reconfigurable circuits at millimetre-wave frequencies and in high power applications. Research groups from industry and academia are developing innovative approaches for switchable/reconfigurable front-ends using new technologies and materials such as plasmas technologies, and active electromagnetic surfaces. This workshop will present the latest technology developments in the areas of tuning and switching, with a good balance between presentations from industry and academia, covering both high power and millimetre-wave applications.

New materials and technologies are providing designers with the opportunity to produce solutions that could not be accomplished in the past, opening up new avenues for innovative power amplifier (PA) design. Multistandard requirements for wireless infrastructure are driving the need for broadband PAs capable of achieving performance across several bands. The requirement for power at ever-increasing frequencies is driving the development of n-dimensional power combiners and multi-input multi-output systems (MIMO). The complexity of the communication systems is driving a need to go beyond traditional approaches to impedance matching circuits and use such techniques as network synthesis.
Network synthesis requires an understanding of the components of a dynamically interacting system and designing a network that ensures the desired performance. It is used widely in control, robotics and mechanical design and in the field of PA design the output matching network is often considered to be solely a passive circuit rather than part of a dynamic non-linear system. Network synthesis provides a method of designing an interactive system given a desired frequency- or time-domain response, with metrics such as power, efficiency and linearity. Such a system may include a passive or non-passive network that interacts with an active, often non-linear device: the power transistor.
In this workshop we will present the motivation for the application of network synthesis to power amplifier design. The successful application of network synthesis to Doherty design and switch mode PAs will be presented as well as approaches such as the Real Frequency Technique to increase the bandwidth of traditionally narrowband PA designs. Procedures for achieving the best trade-offs for performance will be address including how to design for high peak to average ratio modulated signals, efficiency, linearity and power. Design of continuous mode PAs with be demonstrated along with best practices for mixed signal (Analog/Digital) power modules.

In-Al-Ga-N/GaN wide band gap heterojunction technology as an advancement in active devices has been in development for several years. AlGaN/GaN devices are currently improving systems for radars and jammers particularly and are improving the operation cost fo 4G base stations in mobile communications.
This workshop aims to summarize the recent technical advancements and compare the potential performance to the widely used AlGaN/GaN device structures. InAlN/GaN, AlN/GaN and other heterojunction structures offer several potential advantages over AlGaN/GaN. These include 1) a lattice matched structure with much reduced lattice stress, 2) higher reliability and robustness due to the improved lattice match, 3) much higher output current and current density and thus higher output power where the high breakdown condition is preserved, 4) potentially higher chemical and thermal stability due to the higher temperature the structures can withstand, 5) potentially improved control of surface instabilities, and 6) thinner barrier and gate shorter gate structures which will lead to higher power performance at higher frequencies into the millimeter range. Both device and resulting microwave and millimeter circuit advancements will be addressed. This workshop will bring together experts from around the world to discuss the state of the art of this technology.