Florian Starzer

An area and phase noise improved 19-GHz down-converter VCO for 77-GHz automotive radar frontends in a SiGe Bipolar Production Technology

A down-converter including a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), buffer, mixer, and prescaler is presented. The fully differential circuit configuration of the down-converter operates in a frequency range from 17.7 GHz to 19.4 GHz at a 5.5 V supply. The overall current consumption at room-temperature is 186 mA. The VCO has been improved in terms of area consumption and phase noise.

A fully integrated 77-GHz radar transmitter based on a low phase-noise 19.25-GHz fundamental VCO

A 77-GHz automotive radar transmitter is presented. The transmitter is based on a 19.25-GHz Colpitts voltage controlled oscillator, that feeds two cascaded frequency doubler stages. In a following medium power amplifier (MPA) the signal recovers after frequency transformation. Finally a power amplifier (PA) adds 6 dB to the power level after the MPA. In addition, an emitter follower stage connected to the oscillators output drives a switchable divide-by-16/32 stage realized in emitter-coupled-logic (ECL).

A heterodyne 77-GHz FMCW radar with offset PLL frequency stabilization

This contribution describes the realization of a heterodyne frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar system operating in the frequency band from 76 GHz to 77 GHz. To implement the heterodyne principle two voltage controlled oscillators (VCOs) are operated in order to produce frequency ramp signals with a fixed frequency offset. This allows to mitigate effects occurring in homodyne systems like, e.g., DC-offsets or low-frequency noise components. To avoid large divider values in the control loop the presented system is based on an offset phase-locked-loop configuration. In the presented implementation the same downconverter is used to implement the offset-loop for both VCOs, which has the positive effect that errors and noise influences in the downconversion process—at least partly—cancel out in the final FMCW output signal.

A 77-GHz SiGe frequency multiplier (×18) for radar transceivers

For 77-GHz automotive radar applications, a monolithic frequency multiplier with a multiplication factor of 18 is presented. The main circuit of the multiplier chain consists of two frequency tripler and one doubler. Additionally interstage amplifiers and filters are integrated in a 200-GHz SiGe:C production technology. The output power is −1dBm for a wide input power range (−20dBm − +8 dBm) at room temperature and 76.5 GHz output frequency. The output power flatness is better than 2 dB for an output frequency range of 69 GHz to 80 GHz. The power consumption of the multiplier is 170mW at a single supply voltage of 3.3V.

A fully integrated 60-GHz radar sensor with partly integrated phase-locked loop

A partly integrated phase-locked loop (PLL) accompanied by a 60 GHz IQ-transmitter and IQ-receiver is presented in this paper. The chip has been designed to support wireless data communication applications as well as radar applications for level sensing or moving-target-indication (MTI) in the ISM band. This contribution focuses on the implementation of the PLL, furthermore it shows a CW-radar-measurement scenario using an RF demonstrator.

A 77-GHz FMCW radar transceiver sourced through a 19-GHz SiGe Colpitts oscillator

An integrated 19-GHz Colpitts oscillator for a 77-GHz FMCW automotive radar frontend application is presented. The Colpitts oscillator has been realized in a fully differential circuit architecture. The VCOs 19 GHz output signal is buffered with an emitter follower stage and used as a LO signal source for a 77-GHz radar transceiver architecture. The LO frequency is quadrupled and amplified to drive the switching quad of a Gilbert-type mixer. As the quadrupler-mixer chip is required to describe the radar-sensor it is introduced, but the main focus of this paper aims the design of the sensors LO source. In addition, the VCO-chip provides a divide-by-8 stage. The divider is either used for on-wafer measurements or later on in a PLL application.

A low phase noise VCO in eWLB package

A chip-package co-design for a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) designed in a 200-GHz SiGe:C technology is presented. The VCO is frequency-adjustable using a package defined inductor. An overall bandwidth of 21% supports the frequency bands for three different radar applications with a single silicon device. The VCO is accompanied by a buffer, a down-converter mixer (D-Cm) as well as a prescaler. The VCO is assembled in an embedded wafer level ball grid array (eWLB) package with its inductor in the packages fan-in area. It obtains a center frequency as high as 18GHz and achieves phase noise (PN) values of −92 dBc/Hz at 100 kHz offset frequency and an overall bandwidth of 21.7%.

On-wafer passives de-embedding based on open-pad and Transmission Line measurement

In this paper, a new de-embedding technique based on open-pad and Transmission Line (TL) measurement is discussed. This technique can be used as an alternative to the conventional de-embedding approaches in order to characterize on-chip passives in the millimeter wave range of frequencies. Using open-pad measurement, parallel parasitics are extracted and removed in the first step. Cross-talk parasitics between two pads that are kept at a constant distance can be assumed constant, and thus both cross-talk and parallel parasitics can be removed. Subsequently, the transfer function matrix of a single-ended TL is used to de-embed series parasitics from the measurement results. The measurement results are in a close agreement with the simulations up to 110 GHz.

77 GHz Radar Transmitter With PLL Based on a Sub-Harmonic Gilbert Frequency Doubler

This contribution highlights the usage of a high-quality voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) at 19.25 GHz fundamental frequency with a succeeding times four frequency multiplication scheme facilitating a 77 GHz output frequency. Signal tapping at the VCOs common emitter node allows obtaining the second-order harmonic tone that drives a single Gilbert frequency doubler. Beneficial to the PLL implementation is a reduced overall prescaler ratio allowing faster frequency ramps.

A novel 77-GHz radar frontend with 19-GHz signal distribution on RF-PCB substrate

A novel radar frontend for 77 GHz mid-range-radar (MRR) and short-range-radar (SRR) applications is presented. The radar sensor makes use of a Colpitts oscillator, frequency multipliers, and a transceive (TRX) mixer. A single sensor contains up to four channels using antenna arrays for angular detection relative to the sensor. The characterization of the integrated circuits parameters has been carried out using a two-channel sensor with waveguide (WG) transitions. A radar measurement scenario has been realized using a four-channel sensor with a differential antenna array. All sensors have been implemented on off-the-shelf printed circuit board (PCB) substrate.