A fully integrated shock wave transmitter with an on-chip dipole antenna for pulse beam-formability in 0.18-μm CMOS

This paper presents a fully integrated 9-11-GHz shock wave transmitter with an on-chip antenna and a digitally programmable delay circuit (DPDC) for pulse beam-formability in short-range microwave active imaging applications. The resistorless shock wave generator (SWG) produces a 0.4-V peak-to-peak (p-p) shock wave output in HSPICE simulation. The DPDC is designed to adjust delays of shock-wave outputs for the beam-forming purpose. SWG's output is sent to an integrated meandering dipole antenna through an on-chip transformer. The measured return loss, S11, of a stand-alone integrated meandering dipole is from -26 dB to -10 dB with frequency range of 7.5-12 GHz. A 1.1-mV(p-p) shock wave output is received by a 20-dB standard gain horn antenna located at a 38-mm distance from the chip. Frequency response and delay resolution of the measured shock wave output are 9-11-GHz and 3-ps, respectively. These characteristics are suitable for fully integrated pulse beam-forming array antenna system.