Bendable 190-GHz Transmitter on 20-μm Ultra-Thin SiGe BiCMOS

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

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Abstract

This research work presents the fabrication and characterization of ultra-thin fully integrated transmitter circuits. By moving bendable technology into the 190-GHz band, it is possible to implement complete transmitter systems or sensor nodes, including on-chip antennas, on a single chip without the need for surrounding circuits, thus increasing system performance and reducing cost. To fabricate such thin chips, a standard 700- μm fully processed SiGe BiCMOS wafer was thinned to a thickness of only 20 μm making the silicon bendable. The transmitter, which consists of a voltage-controlled oscillator, a power amplifier, and an on-chip antenna, was characterized by comparing thinned and standard thickness samples. Therefore, a maximum relative deviation of the oscillator frequency tuning of less than 2% was found. The oscillation frequency of the chip is measured in a bent state, resulting in a maximum relative deviation for bend radii of up to 4 mm of only 1%. Considering a maximum output power deviation of 4.6 dB, the presented approach proves to be feasible for the design of flexible high-performance integrated systems. This enables novel applications in the field of medicine, wearable electronics, and the Internet of Things.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)122-133
Number of pages12
JournalIEEE journal on flexible electronics
Volume1
Issue number2
Publication statusPublished - 13 Apr 2022
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Mendeley 8ccc4422-9bd4-3a9c-aa77-11696411d73e
unpaywall 10.1109/jflex.2022.3167372
ORCID /0000-0003-2197-6080/work/135492377
ORCID /0000-0001-6778-7846/work/142240140

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