On-Wafer Measurement System for the Analysis of Integrated Submillimeter-Wave Circuits

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A central research focus of the Institute of Electronic Devices and Circuits at Ulm University is the research and investigation of circuits and integrated system concepts for extremely broadband sensors and communication systems. In both areas, the goal is to realization of high carrier frequencies for the realization of unprecedented baseband bandwidths far maximum data rates and highest sensing resolutions on the basis of highly-integrated and cost-efficient integrated circuit technology (mainly silicon-germanium). A further increase in carrier frequencies into the submillimeter-wave regime and the directly linked increase of absolute bandwidth for approximately constant relative bandwidths enables significant progress in the area of precision miniaturized radar sensors, spectroscopy applications such as gas sensing and material characterization. The use of these extremely high bandwidths further allows future wireless communication with huge data rates beyond 100 Gbaud/s.The characterization of designed integrated transceivers and their circuit building blocks, as well as the determination of material parameters and high-frequency transfer functions of propagations paths necessitates corresponding measurement technology in the form of submillimeter-wave S-parameter probing. For the active integrated circuits, it needs to include additional possibilities for the determination of noise, linearity, and signal quality. Beyond that, the measurement station needs to obey modern circuit implementation trends and feature frequency-converting measurements. The characterization is performed directly at the pads of the designed ICs, and especially single building blocks, and necessitates a co-implementation and compatibility of the measurement equipment with a high-frequency on-wafer probe station.