A Study on Compact Dual-Band Receiver Architecture and Circuits for Sub-THz Band Beamforming System

Abstract

According to Shannon’s theory, there are many efforts to increase the data rate which lead to 5G+/6G. To open sub-THz era, beyond the 5G+/6G generation, TRx in the H-band from 200 GHz to 350 GHz is required. However, as the frequency increases, the path loss increases as the effective wavelength increases as well as the transistor’s own performance decreases. As a result, it becomes difficult to secure the effective isotropic radiation power (EIRP) and signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the ICs. In order to compensate the power, phased array system is emerging as the key of TRx. In addition, as the use of wireless signals has explosively increased, communication frequency is almost saturated. Therefore, single-side band (SSB) operation has become important in the Rx to improve the quality of received signals. This dissertation discusses the compact dual-band receiver architecture and circuits for sub-THz band beamforming. Using the cartesian vector modulation (VM), the function of the phase array and SSB are performed at once with one I/Q generation which lead to compact design. Power measurement was performed to confirm the output power and rejected power and phase rotating experiments was also performed to verify the phase rotation. Lastly, a communication experiment was conducted using a 16-QAM signal.