Event Details
MMIC and RFIC Solutions for Modern Radio Astronomy
Presenter: Alireza Seyfollahi
Supervisor:
Date: Thu, September 8, 2022
Time: 10:00:00 - 11:00:00
Place: ZOOM - Please see below.
ABSTRACT
Link: https://uvic.zoom.us/j/87829400180?pwd=bDBJczVvUllQQVVtNTBYbHVwclordz09
Meeting ID: 878 2940 0180
ABSTRACT
Radio telescopes have been enabling scientific breakthroughs such as cosmic microwave background emission, discovery of quasars and imaging of the black holes for the first time. Array radio telescopes employ interferometry to achieve high image resolution and modern radio telescopes are planned to be built in the form of large array receivers. However, the cost and complexity of constructing such large arrays increases exponentially as the number of antennas increases. Therefore, developing high performance RF blocks is critical to keep the cost and complexity of a receiver down. In this seminar we present the research on development of Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMICs) and Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFICs) for modern radio receivers such as the Dish Verification Array (DVA-2), next generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) and Canadian Hydrogen Observatory and Radio-transient Detector (CHORD). The goal is to design ICs that address the unique challenges of each radio telescope frontend at microwave and millimeter wave regime ranging 1-120 GHz. Low noise, high gain, and wide bandwidth Low Noise Amplifiers (LNA) and wideband high conversion gain mm-wave mixers are the critical components of a radio receiver. The designed integrated circuits are based on four semiconductor technologies: GaAs pHEMT, GaAs mHEMT, InP HEMT and SiGe BiCMOS. Four LNAs at UHF (0.3-1.5 GHz), Ku (12-24 GHz), Ka (18-36 GHz) and Q (30-52 GHz) bands and three mm-wave mixers at Q (35-50 GHz and 33-55 GHz) and W (70-120 GHz) bands are presented. A co-design method is employed to account for packaging and wire bond effect and designs are validated by measurements and compared to similar published works and commercially available chips demonstrating superior performance required modern radio telescopes.