This article presents a W-band power amplifier (PA) for automotive radar applications. It was designed in a 28-nm fully depleted silicon-on-insulator CMOS technology with a transition frequency of around 270 GHz and a standard back-end-of-line. The circuit adopts a pseudo-differential topology with coupling transformers, which allow both compact matching networks and layout-optimized interstage interconnections. The power stage exploits a transformer-based folded-cascode structure that is very suitable for low-voltage mm-wave power applications. The PA is able to deliver a saturated output power as high as 13.5 dBm at 77 GHz with a power-added efficiency of 14.5%, while using a power supply as low as 1 V. The linear power gain is 26.5 dB and the current consumption is 150 mA. The PA occupies a core die size of 700 μm x 200 μm.

This paper presents a 77-GHz automotive radar receiver in a 28-nm fully depleted silicon-on-insulator CMOS technology. It exploits a mixer-first direct-conversion architecture to trade-off noise and linearity performance. The receiver is composed of a 77-GHz downconverter, a variable-gain amplifier, and a switched-capacitor low-pass filter. It adopts an effective and robust approach for leakage suppression due to the TX to RX crosstalk, which overcomes both gain and linearity limitations. The receiver draws an overall quiescent current as low as 27 mA from a 1-V supply voltage and provides an overall gain up to 75 dB with a noise figure of 8.2 dB. Despite the low supply voltage, an excellent blocker immunity of -9.5 dBm is achieved along with an output 1-dB compression point as high as -1.5 dBV.

This paper presents a review of 77-GHz down-converter solutions for automotive radar sensors in 28-nm FD-SOI CMOS technology. A comparison of two different topologies based on common source (CS) and common gate (CG) stages is reported. The comparison is carried out at a power supply as low as 1-V and at 15-mA current consumption. CS-based and CG-based down-converters achieve a conversion gain of 27.5 and 21.3 dB over a -3-dB bandwidth of 16 GHz and 22 GHz, respectively, while exhibiting a noise figure of 7.8 dB and 9.1 dB.

A transformer-based voltage-controlled oscillator for a W-band frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) automotive radar application is presented. The design challenges imposed by the millimeter-wave frequency operation were faced through a circuit and layout co-design approach, supported by extensive electromagnetic simulations and accurate analysis of both the start-up condition and the tank quality factor. The oscillator was implemented in a 28-nm fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (SOI) complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology. It provided a 37 GHz oscillation frequency with a variation of around 4 GHz, thus achieving a tuning range of 11%. Moreover, a 77 GHz output signal was also delivered, which was extracted as a second harmonic from the input-pair common-mode node. The circuit exhibited low phase noises, whose average performances were −97 dBc/Hz and −121 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz and 10 MHz offset frequencies, respectively. It delivered a 77-GHz output power of −10.5 dBm and dissipated 26 mW with a 1 V power supply. The silicon area occupation was 300 × 135 µm.

This paper presents an extensive comparison of two 28-nm CMOS technologies, i.e., standard and mm-wave-optimized (i.e., thick metals and intermetal oxides) back-end-of-line (BEOL). The proposed comparison is carried out at both component and circuit level by means of a quantitative analysis of the actual performance improvements due to the adoption of a mm-wave-optimized BEOL. To this end, stand-alone transformer performance is first evaluated and then a complete mm-wave macroblock is investigated. A 77-GHz down-converter for frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) long-range/medium range (LR/MR) radar applications is exploited as a testbench. For the first time, it is demonstrated that thicker metals and intermetal oxides do not guarantee significant improvements at mm-wave frequencies and a standard (low-cost) BEOL is competitive in comparison with more complex (expensive) ones.

This article presents a 77-GHz transmitter (TX) in a 28-nm fully depleted silicon-on-insulator CMOS technology for automotive radar applications. The circuit has been designed to simultaneously fulfill both short-/medium-range (S/MR) and long-range (LR) operations. It exploits an LO frequency doubling architecture, which allows preventing voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) pulling effects for improved phase noise (PN) performance. The proposed TX comprises a 38-GHz VCO driving a frequency doubler and then a current-combining two-path power amplifier. The VCO takes advantage of a novel tank architecture to cope S/MR and LR requirements with an effective and silicon area-saving solution. The proposed TX also features a feedback loop that allows properly setting the power delivered to the output load. It exhibits a 5-GHz bandwidth, ranging from 76 to 81 GHz, with a PN performance as low as $-$ 93 dBc/Hz at a 1-MHz offset frequency from a 77-GHz carrier. It is also able to deliver a maximum output power as high as 17.5 dBm with a dynamic control range of around 13 dB. The overall power consumption is 351 mW.