A 200 GHz Heterodyne Image Receiver With an Integrated VCO in a SiGe BiCMOS Technology

Abstract

A 200 GHz heterodyne image receiver consisting of a mixer integrated with an on-chip voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) has been developed in a 0.18 SiGe BiCMOS technology. Incoming signals near 200 GHz are down-converted by the 3rd-order subharmonic mixer with V-band local oscillator (LO) pumping, which is provided by the Colpitts VCO with a stacked common-base buffer. The measured minimum conversion loss is 11.5 dB at 196 GHz with an input 1 db compression point ( ) of . The fabricated chip with an area of 600 400including pads consumes total DC power of 25.5 mW. A two-dimensional 200 GHz image acquired with the receiver is presented to demonstrate its imaging application.

An Oscillator and a Mixer for 140-GHz Heterodyne Receiver Front-End based on SiGe HBT Technology

“…The frequency band beyond 100 GHz is attracting increasing recent interests for various applications, which include broadband communication and mm-wave/THz imaging [1,2]. The communications systems benefit from this raised frequency for the wide bandwidth available, while the image systems will show higher resolution with the reduced wavelength for this frequency band.…”

“…It is a well-known fact that heterodyne systems have long been adopted for communication applications for various modulation schemes. Imaging systems also benefit from the heterodyne technique, especially for THz applications where direct detection is not readily available or heterodyne detection outperforms direct detection [2,3]. Hence, the implementation of heterodyne systems operating beyond 100 GHz is of growing interest for high-end communication systems and imaging systems, as well as a wide range of other applications these days.…”