Wireless data transfer with mm-waves for future tracking detectors

Abstract

Wireless data transfer has revolutionized the consumer market for the last decade generating many products equipped with transmitters and receivers for wireless data transfer. Wireless technology opens attractive possibilities for data transfer in future tracking detectors. The reduction of wires and connectors for data links is certainly beneficial both for the material budget and the reliability of the system. An advantage of wireless data transfer is the freedom of routing signals which today is particularly complicated when bringing the data the first 50 cm out of the tracker. With wireless links intelligence can be built into a tracker by introducing communication between tracking layers within a region of interest which would allow the construction of track primitives in real time. The wireless technology used in consumer products is however not suitable for tracker readouts. The low data transfer capacity of current 5 GHz transceivers and the relatively large feature sizes of the components is a disadvantage.Due to the requirement of high data rates in tracking detectors high bandwidth is required. The frequency band around 60 GHz turns out to be a very promising candidate for data transfer in a detector system. The high baseband frequency allows for data transfer in the order of several Gbit/s. Due to the small wavelength in the mm range only small structures are needed for the transmitting and receiving electronics. The 60 GHz frequency band is a strong candidate for future WLAN applications hence components are already starting to be available on the market.Patch antennas produced on flexible Printed Circuit Board substrate that can be used for wireless communication in future trackers are presented in this article. The antennas can be connected to transceivers for data transmission/reception or be connected by wave-guides to structures capable of bringing the 60 GHz signal behind boundaries. Results on simulation and fabrication of these antennas are presented as well as studies on the sensitivity of production tolerances.