A 93-to-113GHz BiCMOS 9-element imaging array receiver utilizing spatial-overlapping pixels with wideband phase and amplitude control

Benefiting from aggressive feature size scaling, silicon technologies have recently shown the capability of implementing W-band imaging receivers with an image resolution of 1.5mm and temperature resolutions of less than 0.5K [1-4]. This paper extends the capability of an imaging array receiver by improving image resolution using the novel concept of spatial-overlapping sub-arrays and enhancing image capture time using a phased-array within an imaging array receiver (RX). Specifically, the design and implementation of a BiCMOS 9-element array RX consisting of four 2×2 overlapping sub-arrays is presented. The RF-path-sharing between neighboring sub-arrays leads to a reduction in the chip area by 40% as compared to a conventional imaging array consisting of four 2×2 non-overlapping sub-arrays, while improving the RX's spatial resolution due to the higher sub-array density. Each 2×2 sub-array in this imaging array RX forms a pixel (Fig. 8.5.1).