Benjamin Goettel

Active Multiple Feed On-Chip Antennas with Efficient In-Antenna Power Combining Operating at 200-320 GHz

The design and measurement of active multiple-feed on-chip antennas realized in a SiGe seven metal layer backend process are presented for millimeter-wave applications. To prevent the excitation of surface waves, the principle of an integrated lens antenna (ILA) is used. In-antenna power-combining is realized by using a novel concept in which the outputs of two or more parallel differential amplifiers are directly combined in the radiating element itself. The proof-of-concept is shown by characterizing the antennas directly without the amplifiers being connected and by using adequate feeding networks capable of demonstrating high ILA bandwidths. Further, the power-splitting is realized through distributed transformer circuits, which offer high bandwidths at low losses. Different antennas are evaluated in order to attain reflection coefficients better than −10 dB over the entire frequency band of 200–320 GHz. Finally, the power-combining capabilities of such antennas are demonstrated by connecting a four-feed differential antenna to four single stage cascode amplifiers in parallel.

Ultra broadband multiple feed antenna for efficient on-chip power combining

A multiple feed on-chip antenna is realized in a SiGe seven metal layer backend process. The principle of an integrated lens antenna (ILA) is used and this work presents the proof-of-concept for a power-combining antenna since it can be directly connected to differential amplifiers. For measurements an adequate feeding network has to be designed which should provide the same broadband characteristic as the antenna itself. The measured antenna reaches a return loss better than -10 dB in a frequency range of 210 to 320 GHz and a realized gain of 17.5 to 23 dBi, including a power-splitter. The simulated efficiency of the on-chip antenna element, excluding the feeding network, exceeds 75%.

A 130 to 160 GHz broadband power amplifier with binary power splitting topology

The range of radar and communication systems working in the atmospheric window around 140 GHz strongly is limited by the output power of the transmit amplifier. To allow for long range application, a broadband power amplifier with 145 GHz center frequency and a -3dB bandwidth from 130 GHz to 160 GHz has been developed. It makes use of a binary power dividing topology, which is compact size and allows for very broadband power amplifier designs. The developed amplifier has more than 15dB small-signal gain, a power added efficiency of about 4% and an output power of 13.1 dBm, i.e. 20 mW. The three-stage amplifier makes use of 100nm gate-length metamorphic high electron mobility transistors on GaAs substrate.

Packaging Solution for a Millimeter-Wave System-on-Chip Radar

In this paper, a packaging solution for millimeter-wave system-on-chip (SoC) radio transceivers is presented. The on-chip antennas are realized as primary radiators of an integrated lens antenna which offer high bandwidth and high efficiency. The package concept includes a high permittivity silicon lens which serves additionally as heat sink and a quad flat no-lead package which is mountable on a standard printed circuit board (PCB). The electrical and thermal properties of the package are investigated through simulations and calibrated measurements. The concept is verified by realizing a complete radar sensor. The manufactured SoC radar frontend is soldered on a standard PCB which includes the baseband circuitry for a frequency-modulated continuous wave radar and finally, measurements are performed to compare the superposed radiation patterns of the transmit and receive antennas with simulations.

30 Gbps wireless data transmission with fully integrated 240 GHz silicon based transmitter

In this paper we present communication measurements with a fully integrated 240 GHz transmitter based on a single SiGe RF chip in 0.13µm Bi-CMOS technology. For an improved transmitter gain the on-chip antenna is built up using in-antenna power combining in conjunction with a dielectric 12mm silicon lens. The measurement results show that data rates of up to 30 Gbps are possible for 8-PSK modulated signals. For more robust communication with bit error ratio below 10−3, data rates of 24 Gbps could be achieved using QPSK modulated signals, without any error correction.

Circuit building blocks for efficient in-antenna power combining at 240 GHz with non-50 Ohm amplifier matching impedance

In this work active and passive circuit components suitable for efficient in-antenna power combining are investigated with focus on the matching impedance between the individual components. In the proposed concept, the input power is split by 1∶4 couplers with 12.5Ω output impedance, which enables a very broadband input matching of the following single-ended amplifiers. To combine the output power of the parallelized amplifiers, an eight-feed integrated lens antenna (ILA) with 70Ω input impedance is used, which allows for compact matching to the optimum load impedance of the amplifiers. The individual circuit components are realized in IHPs SG13G2 technology and show excellent agreement with the simulation results. The four times parallelized amplifier shows a gain of roughly 5.5 dB at 240GHz excluding coupler losses.

Real100G.RF: A Fully Packaged 240 GHz Transmitter with In-Antenna Power Combining in 0.13 μm SiGe Technology

Abstract This paper reports on the research activities during the first phase of the project Real100G.RF, which is part of the German Research Foundation (DFG) priority programm SPP1655. The project’s main objective is to research silicon-based wireless communication above 200 GHz to enable data rates in excess of 100 gigabit per second (Gbps). To that end, this paper presents a fully packaged 240 GHz RF transmitter front-end with power combining antenna in 0.13 μ

3D metal printed Ku/Ka Band modified turnstile junction Orthomode Transducer

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Bifocal wide angle lens with optimized construction algorithm for 60 GHz

m SiGe technology. The design of circuit building blocks, passives, antenna and high-speed packaging is discussed. Communication measurements show data rates of 8 Gbps with an EVM of 12.4% using 16-QAM, 24 Gbps with 26.5% EVM using QPSK and 30 Gbps with 27.9% EVM using 8-PSK.

CPW fed 2 × 2 patch array for D-band System-in-Package applications

Orthomode Transducers (OMTs) are key components in dual-polarized satellite communication systems. Turnstile junction (TJ) OMTs are widely popular since their structural symmetry suppresses the undesired higher order modes, which degrade impedance matching and isolation of the OMT. Several works on TJ OMTs operating in single (or narrow) frequency band have been published. In contrast, this paper presents a modified TJ OMT designed for multiple frequency bands: Ku-Band (10.7 GHz–12.75 GHz), lower Ka-Band (19.5 GHz–20.5 GHz) and upper Ka-Band (29.2 GHz–30.2 GHz). Unlike ordinary TJ OMT, the modified OMT besides discriminating the orthogonal polarization signals, also acts as a frequency diplexer. The OMT was manufactured using cost-effective 3D metal printing. The simulated and measured S-parameters were evaluated in Ku, lower and upper Ka bands. The OMT functionality was verified through field test measurement.