300-GHz Integrated Heterodyne Receiver Chain for Phased-Array with Wide IF Bandwidth

Gun Woo Park; Seung Jong Lee; In Soo Han; Sang Geun Jeon

doi:10.23075/jicas.2021.7.4.002

Gun Woo Park Korea University
Seung Jong Lee Korea University
In Soo Han Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Sang Geun Jeon Korea University

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23075/jicas.2021.7.4.002

Keywords: Injection locking local oscillator, Mixer, Phased array, Phase shifter, variable gain low-noise amplifier

Abstract

This paper presents a fully integrated terahertz phased-array receiver with a wide IF bandwidth designed using a 250-nm InP DHBT technology. The phased-array receiver consists of a variable-gain low-noise amplifier (VG-LNA), phase shifter, down-conversion mixer, and injection locking local oscillator (ILO). Each circuit block is designed to be broadband to achieve a wide receiver bandwidth.

The VG-LNA adopts a cascade topology with a current steering technique to control the gain. While the control voltage (V_con) varies from 2 to 3.6 V, the gain varies from 15.6 to 0 dB at 300 GHz. The noise figure is no higher than 15 dB at all V_con conditions. The phase shifter uses a current combining structure based on Gilbert cells. The peak conversion gain is -10 dB at 303 GHz and the 3 dB bandwidth is 52 GHz extending from 270 to 322 GHz. The LO employs an injection locking technique. The locking range is from 260 to 328 GHz (22.7%) when a 10-dBm signal is injected. The maximum output power is 0.5 dBm at 300 GHz. The Gilbert-cell-based down-conversion mixer shows 72 GHz gain-bandwidth extending from 252 GHz to 324 GHz.

The proposed fully integrated phased-array receiver shows a wide bandwidth characteristic. When the control voltage is set to 2.0 V, the peak conversion gain is 12.3 dB and the 3-dB bandwidth reaches 45 GHz from 270 GHz to 315 GHz.

Author Biographies

Gun Woo Park, Korea University

Gun Woo Park received the B.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Korea University, Seoul, Korea, in 2021, where he is currently working toward the M.S. degree in electrical and electronics engineering. His research interest includes RF circuits.

Seung Jong Lee, Korea University

Seung Jong Lee received the B.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Korea University, Seoul, Korea, in 2021, where he is currently working toward the M.S. degree in electrical and electronics engineering. His research interest includes RF circuits.

In Soo Han, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

In Soo Han received the B.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Korea University, Seoul, Korea, in 2021. He is currently working toward the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from the KAIST (Korea Advanced Instituted of Science and Technology). His research interest includes RF circuits.

Sang Geun Jeon, Korea University

Sang Geun Jeon received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea, in 1997 and 1999, respectively, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, CA, USA, in 2004 and 2006, respectively. From 1999 to 2002, he was a full-time Instructor in electronics engineering with the Korea Air Force Academy, Cheongju, South Korea. From 2006 to 2008, he was a Research Engineer, where he was involved with CMOS phased-array receiver design. Since 2008, he has been with the School of Electrical Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, where he is currently a Professor. His current research interests include integrated circuits and systems at microwave, mm-wave, and terahertz bands for high-speed wireless communications and high-resolution imaging applications.

Homepage : https://arfsl.korea.ac.kr/

300-GHz Integrated Heterodyne Receiver Chain for Phased-Array with Wide IF Bandwidth

Abstract

Author Biographies

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