CMOS Devices and Circuits for THz Applications

This paper presents state-of-the-art CMOS devices and circuits for THz applications, including a dielectric resonator antenna (DRA), a power detector, a heterodyne receiver, and a frequency doubler. The DRA operates at a higher-order mode of TE.3,1,7 so that it can provide measured gain improvement of 6.7 dB over a traditional on-chip patch antenna at 327 GHz. The heterodyne receiver composed of an on-chip patch antenna, a triple-push harmonic oscillator and a single-balanced mixer shows measured voltage conversion gain of -1.7 dB at 335.8 GHz while only consuming 52.8 mW from a 0.9-V supply. The doubler manipulates current flows around transistors to provide differential output without needing an additional balun. Some of these key circuits and components are set up with commercial VDI transmitter modules to successfully demonstrate THz transmissive imaging systems with the best spatial resolution of 1.4 mm at 335.8 GHz.