A Full-Duplex Radio Using a CMOS Non-Magnetic Circulator Achieving +95 dB Overall SIC

Abstract

Full-duplex (FD) wireless is an emerging wireless communication paradigm where the transmitter and the receiver operate simultaneously at the same frequency. One major challenge in realizing FD wireless is the interference of the TX signal saturating the receiver, commonly referred to self-interference (SI). Traditionally, self-interference cancellation (SIC) is achieved in the antenna, RF/analog, and digital domains. In the antenna domain, SIC can be achieved using a pair of separate TX and RX antennas, or using a single antenna shared by the TX and RX through a magnetic circulator, which is usually bulky, expensive, and not integrable with CMOS. Recent advances, however, have shown the feasibility of realizing high-performance non-reciprocal circulators in CMOS based on spatio-temporal modulation. In this work, we demonstrate a high power handling FD radio using a USRP SDR which employs SIC (i) at the antenna interface using a watt-level power-handling CMOS integrated, magnetic-free circulator, (ii) in the RF domain using a compact RF canceler, and (iii) in the digital domain. Our prototyped FD radio achieves +95 dB overall SIC at +15dBm TX power level. We analyze the effects of the circulator TX-RX non-linearity on the total achievable SIC.