Millimeter-Wave FMCW Signal Generators for Radar Applications

Millimeter-wasT radars could achieve high detection resolution and have drawn a lot of attention in recent years. Frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar is the most popular one in civil applications due to its low peak power and high integration, where the FMCW signal generator is one crucial block and has significant influence on the radar system performance. In this paper, three kinds of FMCW signal generator are presented, including a charge-pump based analog phase-locked loop (PM, a Bang-Bang phase detector (BBPD) based mixed-mode PLL and a time-to-digital-converter (TDC) based mixed-mode PLL. The advantages and disadvantages of various signal generators are discussed, based on our recent research work. Techniques to support reconfigurable slopes or sawtooth-type chirp waveform and achieve better performance are also reviewed.