A Silicon Micromachined Eight-Pixel Transceiver Array for Submillimeter-Wave Radar

Author

Reck, Theodore ; Jung-Kubiak, Cecile ; Siles, Jose V. ; Lee, Choonsup ; Lin, Robert ; Chattopadhyay, Goutam ; Mehdi, Imran ; Cooper, Ken

Author_Institution

Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA

Volume

5

Issue

2

fYear

2015

fDate

Mar-15

Firstpage

197

Lastpage

206

Abstract

An eight-pixel transceiver array for operation in a 340 GHz imaging radar is presented. Silicon micromachining is applied to fabricate the submillimeter-wave front-end components to increase the density and uniformity of the array while lowering the cost compared to metal machining. Performance comparable with discrete metal machined housings was achieved with the 340 GHz transmitter nominally producing 0.5 mW and the mixers having a DSB noise temperature of 2000 K with a conversion loss of 8 dB. Radar performance is primarily limited by the isolation of the hybrid coupler, which is typically 28 dB, but excellent imaging performance is still achieved and improvements in penetration compared to higher frequency imaging radars is demonstrated.

Keywords

elemental semiconductors; micromachining; radar imaging; silicon; submillimetre wave radar; transceivers; DSB noise temperature; Si; conversion loss; frequency 340 GHz; hybrid coupler isolation; imaging performance; metal machining; noise figure 8 dB; power 0.5 mW; silicon micromachined eight-pixel transceiver array; submillimeter-wave front-end components; submillimeter-wave radar; temperature 2000 K; Arrays; Couplers; Mixers; Radar imaging; Silicon; Transceivers; Silicon micromachining; terahertz (THz) imaging radar; transceiver array;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Terahertz Science and Technology, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

2156-342X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TTHZ.2015.2397274

Filename

7035121