Noise isolation design, analysis, and verification of T-DMB stacked SiP

Abstract

Recently, T-DMB is gaining focus as a candidate of the broadcasting system for the next generation. Compared to the conventional analog TV/radio broadcasting, T-DMB system using digital signal has not only better receiving sensitivity but also enormous advantage of feasibility to implement as the form of mobile device in very small size so as to open new era of TV broadcasting system that enables mobile TV. Meanwhile, System-in-Package (SiP) technology is an attractive solution to realize the T-DMB receiver system in practice. Rather, when dies are stacked in SiP, its size gets even smaller, which makes stacked SiP as one of the best solution to implement mobile T-DMB receiver system. However, in mixed-mode package that RF block coexists with baseband chip and A/V decoder chip, especially in stacked SiP that RF and digital blocks are not easy to be separated spatially, noise coupling is probable to occur between RF and digital blocks, which degrades RF system’s performance. But, there was no attempt to analyze this issue quantitatively as well as no design guideline. In this thesis, quantitative guideline for noise isolation in T-DMB stacked SiP to meet target performance has been proposed from quantitative analysis of noise coupling’s effect on RF system. In order to acquire high performance of RF system in T-DMB stacked SiP, noise coupling from adjacent digital lines to RF line should be avoided. To realize it, several issues should be carefully considered. New T-DMB stacked SiP design methodology has been proposed that includes issues on stacked dies’ orientations, RF and digital signal lines’ reference, power/ground network design, and ballmap design. To prove usefulness of the proposed T-DMB stacked SiP design methodology, two SiPs that one is designed according to the proposed methodology and another is design in the conventional way are manufactured and their performance are measured. Measurement data says that while T-DMB staked SiP designed by the ...