| Summary: | This thesis presents new results for the use of eye diagrams as a functional tool to study the response of components, which may be a simple transistor, an amplifier or even the entire transreceiver system, particularly in the digital environment. Conventionally, S-parameter methods are used to evaluate the performance of devices at high frequencies but these do not offer complete performance characteristics, especially when the components are used in digital applications. In this project it is shown that the eye diagram can be effectively employed to provide an additional measurement tool to quantify the performance of active and passive components. The eye diagram, which have always been used as a mere visual tool in the past, has been shown in this work to be a very powerful tool, which helps in the optimization of components, especially for use in optical applications. In this work, eye diagrams have been generated, measured and also simulated for different passive components, i.e., transmission lines and active components i.e., InGaP/GaAs HBTs and GaAs pHEMTs. It is shown that various eye parameters relate directly to the physics of the components under test. Sensitivity analysis has also been carried out to study the switching characteristics of components using the eye diagrams. Using both experimental and simulation data, in this work it is shown that the eye diagram parameters can be studied to provide feedback to further optimize the components under test. Various parameters of both active and passive components have been measured and evaluated providing a comprehensive study of their behaviours and the way forward to optimize the structure of components for generating improved eye characteristics for digital applications. The measured results are also validated by simulations using Agilent's Advanced Design System. Small signal parameters of both HBTs and pHEMTs have been extracted using direct extraction method through IC-CAP and these were used in the simulation of eye diagrams. The procedures developed in this study would assist in the implementation of techniques to improve microwave component performance based on the feedback from the eye diagram analyses and to develop methodologies to build systems based on the eye diagram specifications.
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