Sub-THz scalable Sensor-SoC

亚太赫兹可扩展传感器 SoC

• 批准号: 347375319
• 负责人: Professor Dr.-Ing. Dietmar Kissinger
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Institut für Mikrowellentechnik (MWT)
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2016-12-31 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/347375319?language=en
• 关键词: Sub; THz; scalable; Sensor; SoC

In recent years, the continuous advance in the silicon-based semiconductor technology has allowed first implementations of complete transceivers in millimeter-wave region. The main focus was on 60 GHz short range communication and 77 GHz automotive radar applications. SiGe BiCMOS as a combination of CMOS and silicon germanium (SiGe) technology offers the advantages of good high frequency characteristics with high integration level and low manufacturing cost. One of the major challenges in the current sensor research is opening up the frequency bands above 120 GHz into the THz range, which offers an unprecedented level of resolution and an extremely high miniaturization potential by the additional integration of the antenna structures.The obstacles of the realization of systems in these frequency regions lie in the output power and signal quality of the required integrated electronic signal sources as well as in the sensitivity of the integrated receivers or detectors. The previous research works on integrated signal sources in SiGe and CMOS at frequencies above 200 GHz are characterized by very low output powers. Recently first wafer-scale power combining systems in SiGe in the frequency range up to 100 GHz were introduced. These systems address the problem of low output power, but have no beamsteering functionality. Furthermore, phased-array transmitter frontends were presented. However, these previous works were characterized by a sub-optimal antenna array concept, which enables a good angular performance only by unnecessary effort.The goals of this research project are the studies of design of highly integrated flexible and scalable 320 GHz transceiver structures with beamforming functionality through an intelligent on-chip antenna array design using a highly modern SiGe BiCMOS technology. The studies include the design of minimum-redundancy arrays on individual MMICs as integrated sub-arrays. Arbitrarily large array arrangements can be generated by scaling these MMICs. The flexibility of the modulation scheme belongs also to the key issues of this project. Through additional circuit blocks, the new system should be able to be operated both as FMCW or Chirp Sequence as well as PN system (pseudo noise) in a MIMO-configuration.

近年来，硅基半导体技术的不断进步使得毫米波领域的完整收发器首次实现。主要重点是 60 GHz 短距离通信和 77 GHz 汽车雷达应用。 SiGe BiCMOS作为CMOS和硅锗(SiGe)技术的结合，具有高频特性好、集成度高、制造成本低的优点。当前传感器研究的主要挑战之一是将120 GHz以上的频段开放到太赫兹范围，这通过天线结构的额外集成提供了前所未有的分辨率水平和极高的小型化潜力。这些频率区域系统的实现取决于所需集成电子信号源的输出功率和信号质量以及集成接收器或检测器的灵敏度。先前的研究工作针对频率高于 200 GHz 的 SiGe 和 CMOS 集成信号源，其特点是输出功率非常低。最近推出了首款频率范围高达 100 GHz 的 SiGe 晶圆级功率组合系统。这些系统解决了低输出功率的问题，但没有波束控制功能。此外，还介绍了相控阵发射机前端。然而，这些先前的工作的特点是次优天线阵列概念，只能通过不必要的努力才能实现良好的角度性能。该研究项目的目标是研究具有波束成形的高度集成、灵活和可扩展的320 GHz收发器结构的设计通过使用高度现代的 SiGe BiCMOS 技术的智能片上天线阵列设计来实现功能。这些研究包括将单个 MMIC 上的最小冗余阵列设计为集成子阵列。通过缩放这些 MMIC 可以生成任意大的阵列排列。调制方案的灵活性也属于该项目的关键问题。通过额外的电路块，新系统应该能够在 MIMO 配置中作为 FMCW 或线性调频脉冲序列以及 PN 系统（伪噪声）运行。