A 278 GHz heterodyne receiver with on-chip antenna for THz imaging in 65 nm CMOS process

Performance-Issues-Mitigation-Techniques for On-Chip-Antennas – Recent Developments in RF, MM-Wave, and Thz Bands With Future Directions

“…Furthermore, another favorable band for AoC is Terahertz (THz) region which is gaining popularity for various applications such as astronomy, high data rate wireless communication, short range radar systems imaging, quality control, airport security, skin cancer detection, and wireless networking for smart homes [41]- [43]. Latest advancements in the cut-off frequency of low-cost CMOS technology have also made its use possible for THz region applications [41], [42], [44]. The significance of AoCs has been vastly enhanced with the emergence of a variety of the state-of-the-art applications.…”

“…gain and radiation efficiency in comparison with the off-chip antennas because of the reasons stated in the following paragraph. CMOS has achieved the status of the mainstream IC technology for MM-Wave and THz wireless SoC applications and is preferred due to its low-cost, low-power, and better high-frequency performance based benefits [2], [20]- [23], [31], [32], [34], [41], [44], [47] along with the BiCMOS technology [23], [38]. Moreover, Si based technologies have got remarkable improvements in terms of f t and f max values as a result of tremendous scaling and their f max has now reached 570 GHz [48].…”

“…Optimized for the other components of the SoC based wireless systems, these technologies are not favorable for AoC design because of the values of the permittivity and resistivity of their substrates. Typical commercial CMOS technology substrate has high permittivity (ε r ≈ 11.7) and low resistivity (10 Ω-cm) [1], [2], [14], [15], [17], [18], [21], [22], [24], [29], [30], [32], [34], [36], [37], [41]. These values are beneficial for wireless ICs in several ways.…”

450 × 580 µm 2 Pixel incorporating TX and coherent RX in CMOS for mm‐wave active imaging using a single reflector

“…Introduction: Imaging at millimetre-wave (mm-wave) to sub-mm-wave frequencies using silicon (Si) integrated circuits has been demonstrated [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. Incoherent detectors exhibit useful noise equivalent power (NEP = ∼10 pW/√Hz) and are used to form large-scale arrays [4,5].…”

“…LO generation and distribution are major challenges to scale up this array. To overcome these, use of a self-oscillating mixer combined with an on-chip antenna to form compact coherent RXs [6,7] has been proposed. Integration of TX and super-regenerative RX is demonstrated for communication applications [9].…”