Terahertz Integrated Circuits and Systems for High-Speed Wireless Communications: Challenges and Design Perspectives

• Published in: IEEE open journal of solid-state circuits Vol. 1; pp. 18 - 36
• Main Author: Heydari, Payam
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 2021; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Circuit design; CMOS; Frequency ranges; high-speed; Integrated circuits; Millimeter wave communication; MIMO; mm-Wave; next-G; phased-array; Radio frequency; SiGe BiCMOS; Solid state circuits; Terahertz (THz); Terahertz communications; Terahertz frequencies; transceiver; Transceivers; Wireless communication; Wireless communications
• ISSN: 2644-1349; 2644-1349
• DOI: 10.1109/OJSSCS.2021.3110748

This paper presents challenges and design perspectives for terahertz (THz) integrated circuits and systems. THz means different things to different people. From International Telecommunication Union (ITU) perspective, THz radiation primarily means frequency range from 300 - 3000 GHz. However, recently, a more expansive definition of THz has emerged that covers frequencies from 100 GHz to 10 THz, which includes sub-THz (100 - 300 GHz), ITU-defined THz frequencies. This definition is now commonly used by communication theorists, and since this paper is intended for people with a wide variety of expertise in system and circuit design, we have adopted the latter definition. The paper brings to the open unmitigated shortcomings of conventional transceiver architectures for multi gigabit-per-second wireless applications, unfolds challenges in designing THz transceivers, and provides pathways to address these impediments. Furthermore, it goes through design challenges and candidate solutions for key circuit blocks of a transceiver including front-end amplifiers, local oscillator (LO) circuit and LO distribution network, and antennas intended for frequencies above 100 GHz.