Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by on Tuesday June 06 2017, @12:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the argus dept.

Hiroshima University and Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited (MIFS) today announced the development of a low-power millimeter-wave amplifier that feeds on 0.5 V power supply and covers the frequency range from 80 GHz to 106 GHz. It was fabricated using MIFS's Deeply Depleted Channel (DDC) technology. This is the first W-band (75−110 GHz) amplifier that can operate even with such a low power-supply voltage. Details of the technology will be presented at the IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium (RFIC) 2017, running from June 4th to 6th in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The W-band covers the frequencies used by automotive radars. Sophisticated driver-assistance and self-driving will require radars with millimeter-wave beam scanning capability that can "see" in day and night conditions and even in adverse weather conditions. Such a phased array will consist of up to hundreds of transmitters and receivers. As battery-powered cars become more common, it is imperative that these circuits be low power. Lowering the power-supply voltage is the most effective means of accomplishing that. However, transistor performance drops with voltage and no W-band amplifier has so far operated at as low as 0.5 V . The team of researchers successfully demonstrated a W-band amplifier at 0.5 V by bringing together MIFS's DDC technology and design techniques developed by Hiroshima University. The DDC technology offers high-performance silicon MOS transistors even at low voltages and is currently available from MIFS as a 55-nm CMOS process. The design techniques further improve transistor and circuit performance at millimeter-wave frequencies.

"Now that seriously low-power W-band circuits really seem possible, we should think about what we can do with them. Applications aren't limited to automotive radars and high-speed communications between base stations. What if you have a radar on your smartphone? Today's smartphones can already sense things like acceleration, audible sound, visible light, and Earth's magnetic field. But the only active probing device is that tiny LED (light-emitting diode) that can illuminate at most a few meters. Add a millimeter-wave radar on a smartphone, and it doesn't have to be a so-called primary radar, which only detects waves reflected back. Your smartphone could respond to waves from your friend's radar and send some signal back. A whole lot of new applications could be created, including games," said Professor Minoru Fujishima, Graduate School of Advanced Sciences of Matter, Hiroshima University.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @09:55PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @09:55PM (#521606)

    Isn't this going to fuck with the bats?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @08:34AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @08:34AM (#521812)

    I don't know... I'll have to ask the Dodgers.