A 0.18-μm CMOS shock wave generator with an on-chip antenna and a digitally programmable delay circuit

A 9-11-GHz fully integrated shock wave generator using a 0.18-μm CMOS process for in-door active imaging applications is presented. This chip includes an on-chip wideband meandering dipole antenna, a shock wave generator and a 5-bit digitally programmable delay circuit. The pulse generator simulation produces a 0.4-V peak-peak (p-p) pulse amplitude with a 45.86-ps monopulse cycle in simulation. The integrated dipole antenna's bandwidth -10 dB is 25.3 GHz in EMDS, ADS 2008 simulation. A 20-dB standard horn antenna with distance of 38 mm to this chip is used for the measurement. Measurement results show that 9-11-GHz pulse frequency response with 1.1-mVp-p pulse output voltage received from the horn antenna and 3-ps delay control resolution are suitable for fully on-chip pulse beam forming purpose with integrated antenna array.