High frequency Silicon based systems on chip

Passive millimeter wave (PMMW) imaging is of great interest due to its capability to create images in low visibility conditions (e.g., clouds, fog, dust, and through clothing) for such applications as satellite imaging, airplane navigation, and detection of concealed weapons. A low attenuation atmospheric window from 80-110GHz (W band) makes this frequency range an ideal candidate for PMMW systems. The cost of current PMMW cameras is dominated by the millimeter wave (MMW) compound semiconductor electronics. Advanced silicon technologies with transistor fT/fMAX of more than 200GHz can potentially reduce the cost of PMMW systems by integrating PMMW receivers with imager readout electronics on a single chip. Previous to this work, the current state of the art silicon based W-band imagers are not fully integrated and do not meet PMMW imaging requirements. This dissertation presents the first silicon based 94GHz direct detection imaging receiver with an integrated Dicke switch and baseband circuitry, while simultaneously meeting the stringent thermal imaging resolution requirement of 0.5 Kelvin. As a further improvement, a second generation imaging system was developed and includes a 9 element array with amplitude and phase control in each path, thereby enabling beam steering capability. Additional research into the potential for silicon technologies to provide wideband data communication links while reducing system weight and power (SWAP), as compared to current compound semiconductor technologies, is also explored. To this end, a highly linear silicon based MMW upconverter chain for a reconfigurable QAM transmitter (TX) is presented. The TX measurements show state of the art error vector magnitude (EVM) at a carrier frequency of 45GHz and a data rate of 450Mbps while transmitting a 64QAM waveform.