Innovative radar sensor architectures 24GHz by SiGe-MMIC designs

The complexity of 24 GHz radar sensors is so far limited by the required number of components and therefore resulting costs of particular solutions. Innovative radar sensor structures seem to be only affordable if cost-efficient MMICs are available. The task is to design MMICs which offer both - the utmost level of integration in order to minimize size and cost and the flexibility by combining those chips in multiple ways, so architectures from simple to most complex can be achieved. Two newly designed SiGe-MMICs are presented with the measured technical specifications. Both devices were developed to meet all the requirements in the challenging temperature range of automotive applications. Both MMICs are fabricated in a wafer scale package offering practically the identical RF performance as a bare die. Using those MMICs more complex sensor architectures which need more than just a single receiver are possible.