IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine - Winter 2014 - 21
from distortion put him ahead of
the game. Similarly, designers of
the first generation of bipolar RF
ICs front-end would be content with
developing circuits based on smallsignal and noise analysis, when it is
the much harder to quantify intermodulation and cross-modulation
that limits receivers in the crowded
cellular bands [21, 22].
As part of his consulting work,
Bob designed receiver front-end
products. The publications [23-25]
demonstrate his sure grasp of lownoise amplifier and mixer circuits.
He also guided PhD students on
fundamental studies of mixers, and
with more efficient methods that
had since become known [26-29],
this would bring his own early work
on the topic to date. The mixer
noise analysis by Hull & Meyer [26]
employs periodic impulse response,
and in the context of what else was
being published at the time it stands
out as somewhat unusual. Indeed
it may well have seeded a similar
approach to analyze phase noise in
oscillators that would garner considerable attention.
In recent years, Meyer and his
students have used Volterra series
for the efficient simulation of spectral regrowth in bipolar power
amplifiers [30], and to ascribe certain simulated artifacts to nonlinear
capacitance and high current operation in the bipolar transistor [31].
Oscillators
It would be hard for Bob Meyer to
steer clear of oscillators, well-versed
as he was in the large-signal analysis of mixers. Most textbooks of the
1970s (with rare exceptions, e.g.
[32]) would treat LC oscillators as if
they were linear circuits, and give
a simplified large-signal account
of relaxation oscillators. [33] may
be the first analysis of MOS crystal
oscillators, which were gaining widespread use as clocks on MOS telecom
ICs. Using large-signal considerations they analyze the steady-state
oscillator current waveforms, and
estimate distortion in the oscillation
and its self-limiting amplitude. This
1980 paper serves as a guide on how
to design crystal oscillators correctly in MOS technology.
Well-designed crystal oscillators
may not start up (poorly designed
ones almost always will, such as
the near-universal inverter-chain
crystal oscillator used for a clock
in digital circuits). This problem is
investigated in [34], which shows
that parasitic capacitances and
biasing resistors can suppress the
in the best traditions of research,
driven, I expect, mainly by curiosity, Meyer found that it was possible
to make useful inductors on silicon
substrates in a bipolar process circa
1989 [40]. From this work emerged
a series of integrated LC oscillators
[41-43] with increasing degrees of
circuit sophistication. The design of
these circuits also triggered, as an
extension of the analysis of noise in
mixers, a contribution to the analysis of oscillator phase noise [44].
It would be hard for Bob Meyer to steer
clear of oscillators.
startup of oscillation. A later paper
[35] describes oscillator circuits
that connect to a grounded crystal
use only one pin on the IC package.
This is a good example of a problem
motivated by real-life constraints in
industry, where there is incentive to
eliminate one pin on a package.
Meyer guided several PhD students who worked on the design of
high quality integrated relaxation
oscillators that are temperature stable and supply insensitive [36-38].
I was among them, but my work is
idiosyncratic in that it deals not
with design, but with the then difficult problem of noise in relaxation
oscillators, and predicting the timing jitter that it will induce [39].
If asked to name the one research
product of Bob Meyer's with the
largest impact on the RF IC industry,
I would select his re-introduction of
the spiral inductor on silicon substrates. At the time, conventional
wisdom held that inductors on the
silicon substrate would be unusable at RF because of large parasitic
capacitance and large loss. Indeed,
to a large degree, RF and microwave
circuits on semi-insulating GaAs
substrates enjoyed a near monopoly because they could exploit
useful monolithic inductors. But
Summing Up a Research Career
Bob Meyer is the consummate engineering academic. A superb teacher
(as recognized by IEEE's Kirchmayer
Award), a researcher unmoved by
vogues who stays with themes he
believes in, and someone who has
shown how to successfully bridge
industry and academia without
leaving the technical track, he harks
to a fast disappearing era. Undoubtedly he has been privileged. He has
enjoyed a steady source of research
funding, the company of excellent
colleagues, and stable engagements
as a consultant to good companies.
But privileges alone do not make a
notable career; they must combine
with, as in his case, a deep appreciation of circuit design, the search
for insight through analysis (however hard), a guarded dependence
on simulation, and the insistence to
round off each piece of work with
solid experimental results.
Bob Meyer's way of teaching and
research lives on, in his students
and co-workers, and in theirs.
References
[1] R. G. Meyer, R. Eschenbach, and R. Chin,
"A wide-band ultralinear amplifier from
3 to 300 MHz," IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits,
vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 167-175, 1974.
[2] S. Narayanan, "Application of Volterra
series to intermodulation distortion
IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE
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