A 77 GHz FMCW radar transmitter with reconfigurable power amplifier in 65 nm CMOS

Abstract A frequency modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar transmitter in 65 nm CMOS is presented. The transmitter consists of one FMCW signal generator, one reconfigurable power amplifier and bias circuits. FMCW chirp signal comes from a sigma-delta modulated fractional-N phase-locked loop (PLL) with an integrated digital triangle-wave generator to control the output division-ratio of the sigma-delta modulator. A four-way power combining power amplifier is employed to improve the output power with a reconfigurable output power to satisfy different detection distance requirements. The measured results show that the chirp bandwidth achieves 2 GHz, from 76 GHz to 78 GHz, and the power amplifier achieves 13.1 dBm output P1dB with 8.1% PAE. The power amplifier and FMCW signal generator consume 228 mW and 56 mW power, respectively, with a 1.0 V power supply. The core die area is only 2.6×0.88 mm2.

[1]  Liang-Hung Lu,et al.  A 34.8%-PAE CMOS transmitter frontend for 24-GHz FMCW radar applications , 2012, 2012 IEEE Asian Solid State Circuits Conference (A-SSCC).

[2]  John B. Shoven,et al.  I , Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal.

[3]  Feng Zhao,et al.  A single-chip x-band chirp radar MMIC with stretch processing , 2012, Proceedings of the IEEE 2012 Custom Integrated Circuits Conference.

[4]  Jri Lee,et al.  A fully integrated 77GHz FMCW radar system in 65nm CMOS , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference - (ISSCC).

[5]  P. Reynaert,et al.  Design Considerations for 60 GHz Transformer-Coupled CMOS Power Amplifiers , 2009, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[6]  M. Tiebout,et al.  A CMOS direct injection-locked oscillator topology as high-frequency low-power frequency divider , 2004, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[7]  Toshiya Mitomo,et al.  A 77 GHz 90 nm CMOS transceiver for FMCW radar applications , 2009, 2009 Symposium on VLSI Circuits.

[8]  Minoru Fujishima,et al.  22–29 GHz Ultra-Wideband CMOS Pulse Generator for Short-Range Radar Applications , 2007, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.