Papers for

wireless communications product teams

Papers whose findings have a practical use for this group, as judged from the abstract. Open a paper to read what it means in practice.

Language model designs high frequency circuits with automation tools

TACS-RF: Tool-driven Agentic Circuit Synthesis of RF and mmWave Modules

Abstract: We present the framework of TACS-RF - a Tool-driven Agentic Circuit Synthesis of RF and mmWave modules. In this framework, a large-language-model (LLM) coding agent (Claude Opus 4.8) directly drives industry-standard electronic-design-automation (EDA) tools such as Cadence Virtuoso/Spectre, Calibre, Cadence EMX, and Ansys HFSS to design RF and mmWave modules. We validate the framework through the agentic design of a 240-251 GHz sub-THz transmitter in a 90 nm SiGe BiCMOS process. The agent semi-autonomously designed the sub-blocks including a 60 GHz push-push Colpitts VCO with second-harmonic extraction, multistage differential cascode power drivers, a push-push frequency doubler, a differential bowtie antenna, and all the interstage matching networks. The transmitter chain with parasitic-extracted devices and EM-verified passives delivers +5.1 to +6.3 dBm across an 11 GHz varactor-only tuning range, phase noise of -80 to -88 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset while consuming a DC power of 361 mW. We describe the agent-driven design flow and the resulting division of labor between human and agent, taking a step toward a "text-to-ASIC" future for designing RF/mmWave hardware.

Thu 22 OctArtificial Intelligence
The gist
Designing high-frequency radio circuits is a complex task usually done by experts using specialized software. The authors show that a powerful language model can directly control industry design tools to create these circuits semi-autonomously. They tested this approach by designing a transmitter chip operating in very high frequency bands, producing a working design with good performance. This method points toward future designs where text instructions can lead to automatic creation of hardware components.
Open → 2610.31882v1