(Digital Presentation) Sub-THz Front Ends for Future Communication and Sensing Technologies in 130nm Sige Bicmos Technology
Authors: Eissa Mohamed , Fischer Gunter 
Published: November 2022

Introduction: Beyond the-5G technologies are targeting the available bandwidth (BW) in the D-band and J-band. This promises for very high speed communication and sensing accuracy. Although the advantages of operating beyond 100 GHz from the application point of view, it requires a lot of research and development to design a reliable and power efficient chipsets. In this presentation we will go through the design of wideband 240 GHz transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx). Firstly an overview about the link budget analysis will be given, then the design of the local carrier signal generator will be discussed. The wideband Txs and Rxs are to be presented with frequency channelizing concept. At the end the results of the wireless links will be demonstrated.

Link Budget Analysis: Operating at sub-THz frequencies approaching the transistor fT put a lot of constraints on the system link budget. The elevated noise figure together with the limited maximum Pout of the transistors lead to solutions which might be limited in BW or power efficiency. Hence the design architecture need to be optimized taking into account the elevated power consumption and heat dissipation.

Carrier Generation: Several approaches could be followed to generate the sub-THz carrier frequency. For a power efficient solution the fundamental oscillators promise for a power efficient solution but with limited phase noise performance and tuning range. Such a solution is more common for imaging systems operating at a single frequency. In order to achieve wider tuning ranges for multi-channel scenario or FMCW radar systems, the frequency multiplication chains are common, whereas the multiplication factor depends on the system parameters.

Sub-THz Rx: Different approaches were followed to realize a wideband sub-THz Rx. For some technologies the transistors ft does not promise the realization of low noise amplifiers (LNA) with reasonable noise figure, gain and BW. Hence the mixer first approach were followed trying to optimize the noise figure of the down conversion mixer as much as possible. This also enhances the input compression point (IP1dB) of the Rx which is better for monostatic radar applications. On the other hand, if the technology in use allows the development of well performing LNA’s, the LNA first approach was followed to enhance the all over NF of the receiver and ease the implementation of IQ Rxs. In our work an LNA was implemented followed by IQ downconversion mixers and baseband chain as presented in [3].

Sub-THz Tx: The Tx main challenging performance parameter in the sub-THz frequency range is to achieve high output compression point across the required BW with as high efficiency as possible. Increasing the power handling capabilities of the power amplifiers (PA) by increasing the transistors sizes of the output stages, leads to low output impedance and hence higher impedance transformation ratios for the matching structures and eventually narrow band designs. Hence the power combining architectures were proposed as an alternative to increase the output power either by combining on-chip or combining in air. In this work a fully integrated IQ Tx is to be presented with on-chip LO chain and 4-way power combined power amplifier.

Baseband Signal Generation and Processing

The baseband topology depend on the application. For mobile communication or localization use cases a wideband channels are not available directly from the digital processors, a kind of channel bonding is required either in the digital domain or in the analog domain. As a proof of concept we present here 3-IQ frequency interleaving combiner.

Wireless Link Demonstrator

Two demonstrators are to be presented. The first demonstrator is transmitting a broadband IQ signal generated from an arbitrary wave generator wirelessly utilizing an IQ 240GHz Tx and Rx. Data rates up to 100 Gbps were demonstrated across a 1m of wireless link. The second demonstrator includes the implementation of 3-channel IQ channelizer to create the complex modulated signal at several intermediate frequencies (IFs) and then upconverted to the 240GHz carrier signal. On the Rx side the de-channelizer convert the down modulated signal to three IQ channels. Data rates up to 8Gbps were demonstrated wirelessly with the channelization with potential of further enhancements for more channels integration.

Outlook

The future of the sub-THz wireless links for high speed communication and localizations goes towards implementing phased array and MIMO systems. This requires the research community to develop novel architectures to develop large scale arrays with acceptable power consumptions and suitable packaging solution. On the baseband side also the channel bonding solutions are still in an early stage, requiring more work to bond modularly larger number of channels.