3D-Terahertz-Kamerasysteme auf Basis kostengünstiger vollintegrierter SiGe-Technologie mit erhöhter Tiefenauflösung.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Ullrich Pfeiffer
• Subject Area: Electronic Semiconductors, Components and Circuits, Integrated Systems, Sensor Technology, Theoretical Electrical Engineering
• Term: from 2011 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 199692201

• Final Report Year: 2016

Final Report Abstract

In the scope of this research project, three innovative mmWave and THz radar systems were investigated and realized based on transceiver chips monolithically integrated in a low-cost and highperformance SiGe HBT technology. The presented systems offer imaging and ranging capabilities at mmWave/THz frequencies while being low-weight, robust, flexible and low-cost. The first radar system, which has been explored in the scope of this work, is a compact THz FMCW radar system based on a low-cost SiGe chip-set operating at 0.32 THz. After the first experiences with that system have been collected, an innovative FMCW radar system concept based on single-chip transceiver with circular polarization has been investigated and implemented in a low-cost SiGe technology. The proposed silicon-implemented circularly polarized radar transceiver architecture is an important step to increase the system SNR by at least 6 dB (compared with the competitive linearly polarized systems) that is essential to overcome the limitations resulting from the gain-bandwidth product provided by the silicon technologies, which is lower than that of the III-V technologies. The two realizations of the 240-GHz short-range circular polarized FMCW radar transceiver implemented in a low-cost SiGe HBT technology were equipped with a single lensintegrated on-chip antenna. The transceiver chips utilize frequency-multiplier-based architecture and offer a large operational bandwidth of 60 GHz. At the time of publication, the first version of the 240-GHz radar transceiver was the world’s first with circular polarization and a single on-chip antenna implemented in a silicon technology. The use of a single antenna in the circular polarized radar transceiver leads to compact chip size and high sensitivity. Appropriate silicon-lens-based packaging solutions offering thermal control for an optimum RF performance have been found. The relevant performance characteristics of the packaged transceiver modules such as radiated power, antenna beam quality, receiver sensitivity, achievable range resolution and others have been carefully characterized. The achieved results reach well beyond the state-of-the-art in silicon-based imaging systems. The developed and realized circularly polarized radar systems operating at a center frequency of 240 GHz provide an outstanding performance in terms of system SNR, antenna beam quality, achievable range resolution, and module compactness. A suitable PLL-based off-chip linear frequency sweep generator has been developed to generate the LO signal needed for the radar transceiver. For the radar-based imaging, appropriate IF signal processing steps and calibration procedures were developed and successfully applied to achieve a nearly bandwidth-limited range resolution. The newly developed lens-packaged radar transceivers allow the radar systems to be used for a wide variety of short-range applications, such as (inverse) synthetic aperture radar imaging, 3-D imaging for non-destructive package control and security screening, providing a broad range of image modalities. To demonstrate the 3-D imaging capability of the implemented radar systems, a cardboard box containing a blister pack with drugs was screened. Such a non-destructive packaging control could be interesting for the pharma industry e.g. to automatically inform the operator about the number of missing or broken tablets. The encountered problems have been discussed, and suggestions for future improvements and emerging research activities have been elaborated. Thus, the conclusions derived in this project build a basis for the implementation of future siliconbased low-cost, compact, robust, and fully electronic multi-pixel THz camera systems for such industrial applications like the non-destructive quality and package control, and for the civil security.

Publications

• “A 0.32 THz FMCW Radar System Based on Low-Cost Lens-Integrated SiGe HBT Front-Ends”, European Solid-State Circuits Conference (ESSCIRC), 2013 Proceedings, pp. 81–84, Sep. 2013
  K. Statnikov, E. Ojefors, J. Grzyb, P. Chevalier, and U. R. Pfeiffer
  
• “A 240 GHz Circular Polarized FMCW Radar Based on a SiGe Transceiver with a Lens-Integrated On-Chip Antenna”, European Radar Conference (EuRAD), 2014 11th, pp. 447–450, 2014
  K. Statnikov, N. Sarmah, J. Grzyb, S. Malz, B. Heinemann, and U. R. Pfeiffer
  
• “A 240-GHz Circularly Polarized FMCW Radar Based on a SiGe Transceiver with a Lens-Coupled On-Chip Antenna”, International Journal of Microwave and Wireless Technologies, pp. 1–9, Apr. 2015
  K. Statnikov, J. Grzyb, N. Sarmah, S. Malz, B. Heinemann, and U. R. Pfeiffer
  
• “A Fully Integrated 240-GHz Direct-Conversion Quadrature Transmitter and Receiver Chipset in SiGe Technology”, Microwave Theory and Techniques, IEEE Transactions on, vol. PP, no. 99, pp. 1–13, Dec. 2015
  N. Sarmah, J. Grzyb, K. Statnikov, S. Malz, P. R. Vazquez, W. Foerster, B. Heinemann, and U. R. Pfeiffer
  
• “A Lens-Coupled 210-270 GHz Circularly Polarized FMCW Radar Transceiver Module in SiGe Technology”, European Radar Conference (EuRAD), 2015 12th, Sep. 2015
  K. Statnikov, J. Grzyb, N. Sarmah, B. Heinemann, and U. R. Pfeiffer
  
• “A wideband 240 GHz lens-integrated circularly polarized on-chip annular slot antenna for a FMCW radar transceiver module in SiGe technology”, Microwave and Optoelectronics Conference (IMOC), 2015 SBMO/IEEE MTT-S International, pp. 1–4, Nov. 2015
  J. Grzyb, K. Statnikov, N. Sarmah, and U. Pfeiffer