Trends in Imaging Radars Powered by Modern Silicon

Abstract

For many decades, imaging radars were mainly experienced in remote sensing through satellite and airborne SAR. With the continuous improvements in integrated silicon technologies, early adoption of imaging radars to serve the personnel security screening market in the millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum became feasible. Later, the race to establish robust and affordable mmWave imaging solutions for the automotive and industrial applications has also begun. This development is, however, still challenging the semiconductor community, because of the high complexity and the sophisticated requirements needed for imaging radars. In many aspects, such requirements differ significantly from conventional communication systems, which has been and yet dominating the semiconductor industry. In this paper, a general overview on the key aspects of the trending imaging radars and their possible impact on modern silicon are discussed.