On-Wafer Measurement System for the Analysis of Integrated Broadband 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 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 available bandwidths or the flexible use of a broadband spectrum for the measurement of a channel transfer function enables significant progress in the area of precision miniaturized radar sensors, spectroscopy applications such as gas sensing and the characterization of materials. The use of these extremely high bandwidths further allows future wireless short-range communication and electro-optical interfaces with enormous data rates significantly beyond 100 Gbaud/s.The characterization of designed integrated transceivers and their circuit building blocks, as well as the determination of material parameters and broadband transfer functions of propagations paths necessitates corresponding measurement technology in the form of maximally broadband S-parameter probing. For the active integrated circuits, it needs to include additional possibilities for the determination of noise, linearity, and signal quality in a broadband seamless frequency range. Beyond that, the measurement station needs to obey modern circuit implementation trends and feature a two fully-differential measurement ports and further allow for frequency-converting measurements. The characterization is performed directly at the pads of the designed ICs and necessitates a co-implementation and compatibility of the measurement equipment with a high-frequency on-wafer probe station.