The following study discusses the impact of hot-carrier degradation on high frequency performance of the 22nm FDSOI n-channel transistors. A quasi-static small-signal equivalent circuit MOSFET model is used to describe the device behavior. RF characteristics are extracted after stressing device with continuous DC. DC characteristics are also investigated thoroughly before and after stress. It is observed that, the device suffers from both interface damage and oxide defect. Accordingly, this study addresses how severe hot-carrier degradation affects the intrinsic parameters as well as the device performance.

This paper presents the W-band noise performance of the 22nm FDSOI CMOS technology. In detail, the mm-wave thin-oxide MOSFETs is characterized comprehensively in term of device geometries using the tuner-based noise measurement approach. To aid the noise analysis and extraction, the following study adopts an accurate small-signal equivalent circuit model validated well with bias-dependence up to 110 GHz. The effects of back-gate bias to the overall noise performance are also addressed in this work. The test devices exhibit low noise figure in the full W-band 75-110 GHz. Besides, NF min of 2.8 dB and 3.6 dB is recorded at 94 GHz respectively for the n- and p-FETs with 18nm gate-length (N f = 32, W f = 1.0 µm). The result of this study indicates the comparable performance of the 22nm FDSOI technology to other candidates for W-band applications.

This paper presents a reflectometer with an integrated transducer as a high-integration miniaturized sensor for dielectric spectroscopy at 240 GHz in SiGe BiCMOS technology. The reflectometer consists of a signal generation component using 240-GHz multiplier chains, side-coupled directive couplers and a two-channel heterodyne receiver. Readout of the transducer upon exposure to liquids is performed by the measurement of its reflected signal using an external excitation source. The experimental dielectric sensing is demonstrated by using a binary methanol-ethanol mixture placed on the proposed on-chip dielectric sensor in the assembled printed circuit board.

A 480-GHz sensor consists of signal stimulus and the transducer element as well as a subharmonic mixer in a 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS technology is reported. It features a mixer-first architecture based on down-conversion subharmonic mixer, an local oscillator (LO) chain at 240-GHz using a frequency doubler with variable-gain characterization, and a 480-GHz RF chain, making the fully integrated 480-GHz receiver possible. In a frequency range of 210–270 GHz at a maximum of 1.5-V supply offset, the LO chain has a 14-dB power-level variation, comprising with a 120-GHz frequency quadrupler, a power amplifier, and a variable frequency doubler. The proposed subharmonic receiver is driven by the RF and LO chain with a multiplier factor of 16 and 8, respectively. In this way, 480-GHz signal is generated, fed through the transducer, and hetero-mixed at subharmonic mixer. The measured output power difference is adjustable over 8 dB. Along with the intermediate frequency (IF) bandwidth of 20 GHz, the wide RF bandwidth makes it suitable for submillimetre-wave receiver-based dielectric spectroscopy applications. The chip occupies an area of 2.2 mm 2 and consumes 290 mW.

This work gives an overview of integrated microwave to millimeter wave sensors and their applications covering frequencies from 28 GHz to 240 GHz. The designs are capable to address versatile application fields from liquid compound measurements to plaque detection and classification in arteries, glucose detection in continuous glucose monitoring (CGS) systems and virus detection in the context of respiratory diseases. The demonstrated approaches represent powerful and miniaturized solutions for highly sensitive contactless sensing of sample properties. Exploiting millimeter wave frequencies enables highest levels of integration to implement miniaturized sensing solutions including on-chip readout systems.

This article presents a reflectometer-based on-chip dielectric sensor with integrated transducers at 240 GHz. The chip simplifies the measurement of a vector network analyzer (VNA) to sense the incident and reflected waves by using two heterodyne mixer-based receivers with a dielectric sensing element. Radio frequency (RF) and local oscillator (LO) submillimeter waves are generated by two frequency multiplier chains, respectively. Two back-to-back identical differential side-coupled directive couplers are proposed to separate the incident and reflected signals and couple them to mixers. Both transmission line and coplanar stripline transducers are proposed and integrated with reflectometer to investigate the sensitivity of dielectric sensors. The latter leads to a larger power variation of the reflectometer by providing more sufficient operating bands for the magnitude and phase slope of S11 . The readout of the transducers upon exposure to liquids is performed by the measurement of their reflected signals using two external excitation sources. The experimental dielectric sensing is demonstrated by using binary methanol–ethanol mixture placed on the proposed on-chip dielectric sensor in the assembled printed circuit board. It enables a maximum 8 dB of the power difference between the incident and reflected channels on the measurement of liquid solvents. Both chips occupy an area of 4.03 mm 2 and consume 560 mW. Along with a wide operational frequency range from 200 to 240 GHz, this simplified one-port-VNA-based on-chip device makes it feasible for the use of handle product and suitable for the submillimeter-wave dielectric spectroscopy applications.