Lecture 8.

Introduction to RF Simulation

Jaeha Kim
Mixed-Signal
Mixed Signal IC and System Group (MICS)
Seoul National University
j
jaeha@ieee.org
@ g

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Overview
 Readings:
 K. Kundert,
K Kundert “Introduction
Introduction to RF Simulation and Its
Application,” JSSC, Sept. 1999.
 L. Zadeh, “Frequency Analysis of Variable Networks,” Proc.
I.R.E., Mar. 1950, pp. 291-299.
 Background:
 This lecture introduces advanced class of simulation
algorithms that perform linear, periodically time-varying
(LPTV) analyses on circuits.
circuits These simulations are commonly
referred to as “RF simulations”, but once you understand the
underlying principles, there are a myriad of ways to utilize
th for
them f broad
b d classes
l off circuits
i it beyond
b d RF
RF.
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 RF Transceiver
Direct Conversion Transmitter Super-Heterodyne Receiver

 Identify the key circuit blocks and their purposes

 Filters, LNA, LO, mixers, PA, …
 Which ones would have difficulties in characterizing their
functionalities/performances
p usingg conventional SPICE?
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SPICE Analysis Modes: TRAN
 TRAN: time-domain analysis
 Most versatile way of simulating a circuit – measures the
output time-waveforms for given inputs’ time-waveforms
 Note: when digital folks say “simulation”, they always mean
this transient analysis (e.g. Verilog only runs in time-domain)

 Which blocks can you verify/characterize with TRAN?

 Check each of filter, LNA, LO, mixer, PA, …
 Yes you can simulate any circuits with TRAN but you can
Yes,
never completely verify the circuit with it
 This is why digital people ask for “formal verification tools”
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RF Characteristics I: Narrowband Signals
 RF signals are expressed as modulated carriers, e.g.,

 Amplitude, phase, or frequency can be modulated

slow modulation signal

fast carrier 5
RF Characteristics I: Narrowband Signals
 To measure RF circuit responses with TRAN analysis
 We need fine time steps due to the high-frequency
high frequency carrier
 Also, long time span due to the low-frequency signal
 Hence TRAN analysis can take a very long time
Hence,
slow modulation signal

fast carrier 6
RF Analysis Modes: Envelope-Following
 Accelerates transient simulation assuming that the
response is a slowly-modulated
slowly modulated periodic waveform
 Once the periodic waveform (i.e. the carrier) is found, only the
small changes
g between the cycles y are computed
p
 e.g. for simulating initial transients of phase-locked loops

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SPICE Basics
 SPICE is basically a nonlinear ODE solver, which
formulates an arbitrary circuit into:

KCL:

nonlinear nonlinear current

conductors capacitors sources

 One reason ffor SPICE’

O SPICE’s success was its
it reliable
li bl
equation formulation algorithm
 called modified nodal analysis (MNA)
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SPICE Basics (2)
 Once the equation is formed, its solution is found by
iterating between linearization and solving
 Linearize the nonlinear ODE around its temporary solution
 Solve the linear ODE
 Repeat until the solution converges

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SPICE Analysis Modes: DC, AC
 SPICE offers two kinds of steady-state analysis
 DC: finds the DC steady-state response of a circuit
 Assuming the circuit reaches a DC state at t=, solve:

 Solving this eq is actually the most difficult task in SPICE!

 Note: it finds “a” solution but not all the solutions…
 AC: calculates the steady-state response to a small-
signal, sinusoidal perturbation
 Linearizes the system and use phasor analysis to compute
the transfer functions
 Extremely efficient computation – the fastest in SPICE!
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Characterization with DC/AC Analyses
 Which blocks can you verify/characterize with DC/AC?
 Your choices: filter,
filter LNA
LNA, LO
LO, mixer
mixer, PA
PA, …

 The ones with linear

linear, time
time-invariant
invariant (LTI) behaviors
 Filters (LPF, BPF), LNA, and PA fall into this category
 A frequency-domain
q y transfer function completely
p y describes
their functional behavior (filtering, narrow-band amplification)

 But what about others?

 Mixers and oscillators – are they just nonlinear?

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RF Characteristics II: Linear Time-Varying
 Mixers, just like other RF circuits, are designed to be as
linear as possible from its input to output while
minimizing distortion/nonlinearities
 Mixer circuit
Mi i it itself
it lf exhibits
hibit strong
t nonlinearity
li it andd
typically driven by a large-signal LO clock:

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RF Characteristics II: Linear Time-Varying
 However, the LO clock does not bear any information
 It is more like part of the circuit (i.e.
(i e the circuit wouldn’t
wouldn t
function correctly – frequency translation – without it)
 Then mixer+clock can be perceived as a LPTV system:

Unlike LTI systems, LPTV

systems can translate
frequencies!
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RF Characteristics II: Linear Time-Varying
 Oscillators are time-varying systems since:
 Its steady-state
steady state is a time-varying
time varying waveform (periodic)
 Its response to external noises varies with time

( )=0
(1)2

1 2
* A. Hajimiri and T. H. Lee, “A General Theory of Phase Noise in
Electrical Oscillators,” IEEE JSSC, Feb. 1998.
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Periodic Steady-State (PSS) Analysis
 Finds a steady-state response of a periodic circuit
 The circuit may be driven by periodic,
periodic large
large-signal
signal excitations
 The resulting response is a large-signal one, but must be
periodic
 e.g. output of a mixer with DC input, oscillator output clock
 PSS is an extension of DC analysis
y to pperiodic circuits
 Finds the final waveforms after infinite period of time
 Useful for:
– Measuring
M i th
the steady-state
t d t t frequency
f off a VCO
– Measuring the steady-state phase-offset of a locked PLL
 However,, as with DC,, PSS is the most difficult analysis
y
– Can have convergence issues if care is not taken
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PSS Method 1: Harmonic Balance
 Harmonic balance directly finds the PSS solution in
frequency domain
 Assuming that the PSS solution is T-periodic, it can be
expressed
p in a Fourier series:

 Solve a system of equations for k=0, 1, …,  K

 Accuracy/speed depends on the choice of K

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PSS Method 2: Shooting Newton
 Shooting solves a boundary value problem to find a T-
periodic solution:

 IIn other
th words, d find
fi d a circuit
i it state
t t v(0)(0) th
thatt makes
k th the state
t t
after T identical to v(0)
 Requires
q to calculate the sensitivityy of v(T)
( ) w.r.t. v(0)
( )

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Harmonic Balance vs. Shooting
 Harmonic Balance (e.g. Agilent ADS)
 A frequency-domain
frequency domain method
 Easily handles frequency-domain models (e.g. S-parameters)
 Its accuracyy is limited byy the number of harmonics used – not
suitable for simulating strongly nonlinear responses
 Shootingg ((e.g.
g Cadence SpectreRF)
p )
 A time-domain method
 Need not choose the number of harmonics – however, the
time step should be fine enough to simulate the max
frequency AC response
 Can’t handle frequency-domain models directly
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SpectreRF Syntax for PSS
 To find its full description (in fact, it works on any
Spectre commands):
unix> spectre –h pss

 For example:
PSS_Shooting pss fund=1G tstab=100n
+ errpreset=conservative
t ti

PSS_HB pss fund=1G harms=10 harmonicbalance=yes

p
+ errpreset=conservative

 Tip: use ‘simulator lang=spice’ and ‘simulator

lang=spectre’ to switch
i h the
h llanguages within
i hi a ddeckk
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Dealing with PSS Convergence Issues
 Before SPICE became mature enough, circuit designers
used to encounter “DC
DC convergence failure
failure” error a lot
 These days, you may get the equivalent messages with PSS
 However, convergence problems are usually the
However
designers’ faults – the circuit isn’t really periodic!
 Remember, the entire circuit must be perfectly periodic at the
Remember
prescribed fundamental frequency
 Common pitfalls (e.g. for a PLL)
– Some part of the circuit has longer periods (e.g. divider, prbs)
– The PD has hysteresis or deadzone near the locked point
and the PLL doesn’t lock to a single
g ppoint
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Output of PSS Analysis
 A unit-period time-domain waveform

 A collection of Fourier series component

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Quasi Periodic Steady State (QPSS)
 A circuit driven by two large-signal excitations may have
two fundamental tones:

 Its steady-state
y response
p ((i.e.,, a pperiodicallyy modulated
periodic signal) can be found either by harmonic balance
or by shooting

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PSS vs. DISTO
 Consider a PA driven by a large, periodic signal at fc
 The PSS output waveform may have spectrums at kf k fc due to
the PA’s nonlinearities (i.e. harmonic distortion)
 Comparison with SPICE’s
SPICE s distortion analysis (DISTO)
 DISTO computes the harmonic distortions due to “small-
signal” inputs while PSS does for “large-signal” inputs
Input

Output

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RF Analysis Modes: Periodic AC (PAC)
 Computes the steady-state response to a small-signal
sinusoid excitation of a circuit about its PSS
 For LTI systems, AC analysis returns X(j1)H(j1)
 N frequency
No f translation
t l ti isi possible
ibl

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RF Analysis Modes: Periodic AC (PAC)
 For LPTV systems, a sinusoid input at 1 can excite the
output at multiple frequencies of 1+m
+m c
 Hm(c) is the transfer function mapping to the m-th sideband
 In PAC,, yyou specify
p y which Hm((c) to be reported
p

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Linear Time-Varying System Basics
 Time-varying impulse response h(t,):

 Time-varying
y g transfer function H(j;t):
(j )

 Relationship between h(t,)

h(t ) and H(j;t):

 For LPTV system H(j;t) = H(j;t+T):

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* L. Zadeh, “Frequency Analysis of Variable Networks,” Proc. I.R.E. Mar. 1950.
A Mixer Example
 Consider a up-
conversion mixer
 TF to which sideband
wouldld you bbe
interested in?
 Thatt TF ddescribes
Th ib ththe
conversion gain,
bandwidth etc
bandwidth, etc.

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PM vs. AM
 Based on narrowband angle modulation approximation,
one can derive whether the input perturbation modulates
the phase or the amplitude of the carrier:
SpectreRF Syntax for PAC
 First, you need a PAC stimulus:
Vin ( in gnd ) vsource dc=0 pacmag=1 pacphase=0

 Then the analysis

y statement:
sim_PAC pac start=1k stop=.1G dec=10 maxsideband=10
freqaxis=in
 sidebands:
id b d array off relevant
l t sidebands
id b d ffor ththe analysis.
l i
 maxsideband: equivalent to sidebands = [ -maxsideband ...
0 ... +maxsideband
 freqaxis: specifies whether the results should be output
versus the input frequency (in), the output frequency (out), or
the absolute value of the output frequency (absout)
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SPICE Analysis Modes: NOISE
 Computes output noise PSD contributed by multiple
noise sources
 Based on the TFs obtained by small-signal AC analysis

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RF Analysis Modes: Periodic Noise
 Since in LPTV systems
a single-frequency
single frequency input
can give rise to outputs
at multiple frequencies,
noise folding may occur
 The resulting noise is
in general cyclostationary

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SpectreRF Syntax for PNOISE
 Reporting time-averaged PSD of the output noise
sim_PNOISE ( outp outn ) pnoise
+ start=1 stop=0.5G dec=20
+ maxsideband=50 noisetype=sources

 maxsideband specifies the # of sidebands in the noise TF to

be considered
 Reporting the output noise PSD at specific time (hence,
cyclostationary noise):
sim_PNOISE ( outp outn ) pnoise
+ start=1 stop=0.5G dec=20
+ maxsideband=50 noisetype=timedomain
+ noisetimepoints=[0 5n] numberofpoints=1
noisetimepoints=[0.5n]

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