Fully Integrated 24-GHz 1TX-2RX Transceiver for Compact FMCW Radar Applications

Area of Science:

• Electrical Engineering
• Microwave Engineering
• Integrated Circuits

Background:

• Compact Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar systems are crucial for various applications, including automotive and industrial sensing.
• Existing FMCW radar transceivers often face challenges with integration, power consumption, and performance metrics.
• There is a continuous need for highly integrated, low-power, and high-performance radar transceivers for next-generation sensing solutions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a fully integrated 24-GHz FMCW radar transceiver with one transmitter (TX) and two receivers (RXs).
• To demonstrate the feasibility of a compact FMCW radar system for target detection and measurement.
• To achieve high performance in terms of output power, gain, and phase noise within a small form factor.

Main Methods:

• Design and fabrication of a 24-GHz radar transceiver using 65 nm CMOS technology.
• Integration of a fractional-N phase-locked loop (PLL) synthesizer and programmable chirp generator.
• Implementation of a direct conversion I-Q receiver architecture with DC offset cancellation (DCOC) circuits.
• Characterization of the transmitter (TX) output power and receiver (RX) gain.
• System-level verification using a prototype FMCW radar with a Yagi antenna.

Main Results:

• The integrated transceiver achieves a TX output power of 13 dBm with minimal variation (<0.5 dB) across the 24-24.25 GHz band.
• The RX chain provides a high overall gain of 100 dB.
• The synthesizer exhibits a phase noise of -80 dBc/Hz at 100 kHz offset.
• The fabricated transceiver operates at 220 mW from a 1 V supply with a die size of 4.84 mm².
• Successful demonstration of distance and angle measurement capabilities for targets.

Conclusions:

• A fully integrated 24-GHz FMCW radar transceiver has been successfully designed and demonstrated.
• The compact size, low power consumption, and high performance make this transceiver suitable for various compact radar applications.
• The achieved results validate the potential of the proposed design for advanced radar sensing systems.