CMOS Platform for Everyday Applications Using Submillimeter Electromagnetic Waves

Abstract

Complementary Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuits (IC’s) technology is emerging as a means for realization of capable and affordable systems that operate at frequencies near 300 GHz and higher. This is lowering a key barrier for utilizing the submillimeter electromagnetic waves in everyday applications. Despite the fact that the unity maximum available gain frequency, f max of $N$ -channel MOS (nMOS) transistors (with connections to the top metal layer) has peaked at ~320 GHz, signal generation up to 1.33 THz, coherent detection up to 1.2 THz, and incoherent detection up to ~10 THz have been demonstrated using CMOS IC’s. Furthermore, highly integrated rotational spectroscopy transceivers operating at frequencies up to near 300 GHz, and 400-GHz concurrent transceiver pixels and arrays for high-resolution radar imaging, and 300 and 390-GHz transmitters, and 300-GHz receivers for high data-rate communication have been demonstrated in CMOS. The performances of these CMOS circuits are sufficient or close to being sufficient to support electronic smelling using rotational spectroscopy that can detect and quantify concentrations of a wide variety of gases; imaging that can enable operation in a wide range of visually impaired conditions; and high-bandwidth communication. Finally, techniques for affordable packaging and testing submillimeter-wave systems are suggested based on experimental demonstrations.