Integrated 200–240-GHz FMCW Radar Transceiver Module

Journal article, 2013

We present a 220-GHz homodyne transceiver module intended for frequency modulated continuous wave radar applications. The RF transceiver circuits are fabricated on 3 µm-thick GaAs membranes, and consist of a Schottky diode based transmitter frequency doubler that simultaneously operates as a sub-harmonic downconverting mixer. Two circuits are used in a balanced configuration to improve the noise performance. The output power is >3 dBm over a 40-GHz bandwidth (BW) centered at 220 GHz, and the receiver function is characterized by a typical mixer conversion loss of 16 dB. We present radar images at 4-m target distance with up to 60-dB dynamic range using a 30-µs chirp time, and near-BW-limited range resolution. The module is intended for applications in high-resolution real-time 3-D radar imaging, and the unit is therefore designed so that it can be assembled into 1-D or 2-D arrays.