A 200-GHz Four-Element Phased-Array Receiver System-in-Package Using HTCC Technology for Sub-Terahertz Communications

This article presents a novel 200-GHz four-element phased-array receiver system-in-package (SiP) using high-temperature co-fired ceramic (HTCC) technology for wire-less communications. The receiver employs a local oscillator (LO) phase-shifting architecture to realize sub-terahertz (THz) beamforming. All components of the front-end array are het-erogeneously integrated within the HTCC. To achieve low-loss interconnection and 3-D integration, quartz substrates and ver-tical air-filled waveguides are incorporated within the HTCC. Meanwhile, an electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structure is introduced in the vertical transitions to mitigate energy leak-age caused by assembly gaps, thus reducing the sensitivity to assembly errors. Besides, a highly efficient parabolic reflector antenna array with a multilayered structure is designed for beam scanning. The overall size of the front-end package is 40.7 x 43 x 7.3 mm(3). The measured channel gain is 8.2-23 dB from 194.5 to 234.5 GHz (18.6% bandwidth), and the mea-sured lower-sideband noise figure is 7.5-9.4 dB, covering from 196 to 215 GHz. The phased-array receiver can achieve a scanning range of +/- 30 degrees in the E-plane. To evaluate its over-the-air (OTA) performance, a wireless link is demonstrated with 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and 64-QAM waveforms, achieving a maximum data rate of 32 Gbps.