A Scalable 79-GHz Radar Platform Based on Single-Channel Transceivers

Abstract

This paper presents a scalable E-band radar platform based on single-channel fully integrated transceivers (TRX) manufactured using 130-nm silicon–germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS technology. The TRX is suitable for flexible radar systems exploiting massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) techniques for multidimensional sensing. A fully integrated fractional-N phase-locked loop (PLL) comprising a 39.5-GHz voltage-controlled oscillator is used to generate wideband frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) chirp for E-band radar front ends. The TRX is equipped with a vector modulator (VM) for high-speed carrier modulation and beam-forming techniques. A single TRX achieves 19.2-dBm maximum output power and 27.5-dB total conversion gain with input-referred 1-dB compression point of −10 dBm. It consumes 220 mA from 3.3-V supply and occupies $3.96~\mathrm {mm^{2}}$ silicon area. A two-channel radar platform based on full-custom TRXs and PLL was fabricated to demonstrate high-precision and high-resolution FMCW sensing. The radar enables up to 10-GHz frequency ramp generation in 74–84-GHz range, which results in 1.5-cm spatial resolution. Due to high output power, thus high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), a ranging precision of 7.5 $\mu \text{m}$ for a target at 2 m was achieved. The proposed architecture supports scalable multichannel applications for automotive FMCW using a single local oscillator (LO).