Development of Technological Building Blocks for Heterogeneously Integrated sub-THz RF Sensors

Inhalt:
Taking advantage of modern semiconductor processes and packaging technologies the operating frequencies are continuously rising towards higher frequencies. The operation of Radar systems at higher frequencies makes larger ranges of spectrum available which helps increasing the range resolution and reduces the component size. However, with increasing frequencies the overall RF loss due to free space loss and material loss increases. In addition using a larger bandwidth increase the severity of parasitic electrical effects in the performance of RF sig-nal paths and antennas. Therefore in the system design loss has to be minimized, gain improved while the RF signal path and antenna design has to account for the parasitic electrical effects. Today there are already Radar sensors and front-ends available up to 240GHz as system-on-chip integrating multi-channel transceiver and antennas. While the on-chip integration of components allows for a compact RF front-end a compromise has to be found between transceiver performance, on-chip interconnect and antenna loss as well as chip size. An alternative is a heterogeneous integration approach combining RFICs and components in a package. In the project BMFB funded research project “iCampus2 LausiTHz” research on the design and fabrication of transceiver and amplifier RFICs as well as the use of heterogeneous integration technologies for the realization of components and package integrated antennas is conducted. The goal is to develop and evaluate technological building blocks usable in future hetero-integrated Radar front-ends and demonstrate technologies in a laboratory environment.