SiGe BiCMOS circuits and system demonstrators for high range resolution mm-wave radars

Abstract

The potential and performance of the silicon-based millimeter wave radar building blocks and systems have been demonstrated in many ways, including a wideband chirp generator, several high-performance frequency multiplier designs, a single-channel FMCW sensor with 56 GHz bandwidth as well as a MIMO system. An on-chip antenna was also developed, which was integrated with the radar circuits on the same die, reducing the cost and enabling easy mass production. The high-resolution performance of the sensor demonstrator was confirmed by several experiments, leading to potential applications such as hazardous objects detection in commercial airports.