An E-Band Phase Modulated Pulse Radar SoC with An Analog Correlator

Abstract

This paper presents a bi-static integrated pulse radar in the E-band based on a digitally modulated transmitter and an analog processing receiver module. The proposed frontend correlator operates at 1Gbps and uses a 1.5-bit sampler to compress the sensing data, enabling a low-speed and energy-efficient digital backend while delivering a high range resolution. The TSMC 65nm chip prototype has a 1.5mm x 1.3mm area and consumes a total of 407mW with only 38mW corresponding to the analog baseband and digital backend. Over-the-air measurements at the 66GHz carrier frequency indicate the measured distance from the correlator output has an RMS error of 11.6cm and the integral non-linearity is less than 10cm across the entire target range, demonstrating the state-of-the-art range resolution with superior energy efficiency.