CN105449377A - Huge terahertz antenna array based on semiconductor process - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention discloses a massive terahertz antenna array based on semiconductor technology, which includes 10 ⁴ to 10 ⁷ terahertz antenna elements, the terahertz antenna array is formed by arranging a plurality of terahertz array elements, and adopts The CMOS process line integrates the terahertz phased array antenna array on the silicon-based wafer to realize spatial energy synthesis and beamforming to form a high-gain narrow beam antenna; the size of a single terahertz antenna element is on the order of 1mm and 1 meter The circular disk antenna array with a radius of 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 ^{1 2} 1 in from, and a beam width from 0.14°. It can also be formed by splicing multiple silicon-based wafers to finally form a single terahertz antenna array element integrated with a magnitude of 10 ⁷ . The present invention utilizes the characteristics of radio waves in terahertz, and uses standard semiconductor process lines to design and realize antenna arrays with tens of thousands, even millions, and tens of millions of units.

Description

A massive terahertz antenna array based on semiconductor technology

technical field

The invention relates to a novel huge terahertz antenna array based on semiconductor technology for inter-satellite communication.

Background technique

The application of microwave communication technology in inter-satellite links has a history of more than half a century. In order to meet the explosively increasing communication data volume requirements, the required microwave bandwidth continues to increase, resulting in a rapid increase in carrier frequency. For example, the working frequency of the inter-satellite link of the new generation military satellite communication system of the United States has reached 60GHz. As we all know, the huge problem faced by microwave and millimeter wave communication is space link attenuation, and the characteristic of inter-satellite communication is precisely ultra-long distance. The "three magic weapons" (high transmit power, large-aperture antenna array, and extremely low-noise reception) used in traditional terrestrial millimeter-wave communications cannot further meet the actual requirements of higher data rates and longer transmission distances in the space environment due to device constraints. . In the space laser communication mode, due to the shaking of the space platform, the emitted laser beam will oscillate. Cause communication interruption or system bit error rate increase, the requirements for the alignment and tracking system in long-distance communication are very strict.

Terahertz (THz) frequency band is higher than millimeter wave but lower than long-wave infrared, and its frequency range is between 0.3THz and 30THz (wavelength 1mm～10μm). From the perspective of microwave electronics, terahertz is a submillimeter wave, and from the perspective of infrared optics, terahertz is a kind of far-infrared wave. Since the wavelength of terahertz is in the range of tens of microns to hundreds of microns, it just falls within the scale range that can be added to the current semiconductor process. Due to the rapid development of semiconductor technology, it is possible to realize a huge number of antenna elements by using semiconductor technology.

Contents of the invention

Utilizing the characteristics of radio waves in terahertz, standard semiconductor process lines (such as CMOS) are used to design and realize antenna arrays with tens of thousands, even millions, and tens of millions of elements. The electronic scanning method of the antenna array can quickly adjust the beam direction to achieve beam alignment between transceivers. The non-coherent demodulation method has less strict requirements on the geometric spacing and geometric position of the antenna array, so many huge antenna arrays can be stacked during the lift-off process, and then unfolded after reaching space to expand the equivalent aperture of the antenna array.

A massive terahertz antenna array based on semiconductor technology proposed by the present invention includes 10 ⁴ to 10 ⁷ terahertz antenna elements, the terahertz antenna array is formed by arranging a plurality of terahertz antenna elements, The CMOS process line is used to integrate the terahertz phased array antenna array on the silicon-based wafer to realize spatial energy synthesis and beamforming to form a high-gain narrow beam antenna; the size of a single terahertz antenna element is on the order of 1mm, 1 meter The disk antenna array with a radius of magnitude includes 3.14×(1000) ² =3.14 million single terahertz antenna elements, thereby providing a gain of 60dB for a terahertz wave at a frequency of 300GHz with a beamwidth of 0.14°.

The CMOS process line is one of a 40nm CMOS process line, a 65nm CMOS process line, a 0.13 micron CMOS process line, and a 0.18 micron CMOS process line.

The massive terahertz antenna array based on the semiconductor technology of the present invention is formed by splicing multiple 12-inch or 8-inch silicon-based wafers integrated with terahertz antenna elements.

The silicon-based wafer is a 12-inch silicon-based wafer. On the 12-inch silicon-based wafer, a 0.13-micron CMOS process line is used to integrate 10 ⁴ single terahertz antenna array elements, and 16 such chips are integrated with a single The 12-inch silicon-based wafers of the terahertz antenna elements are spliced to form a huge terahertz antenna array containing 10 ⁷ terahertz antenna elements.

The basic resonance of the antenna is a half-wave resonance, which means that 100 microns can form a resonance. The longer the resonance, the higher the reception efficiency. However, the processing accuracy of the current mature silicon semiconductor technology is in the deep sub-micron, or even tens of nanometers, which is sufficient to meet the processing accuracy requirements of the antenna array. Assuming a terahertz electromagnetic wave with a wavelength of 600 microns (500 GHz) in free space, the equivalent wavelength based on silicon with a dielectric constant of 9.8 is about 200 um. According to the basic principle of antenna resonance, as long as the total length of the antenna is compared with half the wavelength, resonance can occur, so using a standard radio frequency inductor with a radius of 75 microns to process a four-turn spiral inductor is equivalent to a length of 900 microns. Loop electromagnetic wave antenna. If a 0.13-micron CMOS process line with a commercial large-scale processing history of nearly 20 years is used for processing, about 49 such four-turn miniature loop antennas can be obtained in one square millimeter, then theoretically a 12-inch standard wafer (that is, a diameter of 300 mm) can achieve up to 1.225 million such micro-shaped antennas.

Description of drawings

Figure 1 Antenna array on a single wafer based on semiconductor technology;

Figure 2 is a multi-wafer massive antenna array based on semiconductor technology.

detailed description

The technical solution of the present invention will be further described in detail below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and specific embodiments, and the described specific embodiments are only for explaining the present invention, and are not intended to limit the present invention.

The present invention is a massive terahertz antenna array based on semiconductor technology, including 10 ⁴ to 10 ⁷ terahertz antenna elements, the terahertz antenna array is formed by arranging a plurality of terahertz array elements, such as 40 A CMOS process line of nanometer, 65nm, 0.13 micron, and 0.18 micron realizes Space-power Combining and Beamforming by integrating a terahertz phased array antenna array on a silicon-based wafer to form a high Gain narrow beam antenna. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an antenna array on a single wafer based on a semiconductor process of the present invention. The size of a single terahertz antenna element is on the order of 1 mm, and a disk antenna array with a radius of 1 meter can be integrated to contain 3.14×(1000) ² =3.14 million single terahertz antenna elements, so that it can provide a frequency of 300 GHz The terahertz wave provides 60dB gain with a beamwidth of 0.14°.

The massive terahertz antenna array based on the semiconductor technology of the present invention can be spliced from multiple 12-inch or 8-inch silicon-based wafers integrated with terahertz antenna array elements. For example: a single terahertz antenna element of the order of 10 ⁴ is integrated on a 12-inch silicon-based wafer using a 0.13-micron CMOS process line, and 16 such 12-inch silicon-based wafers with a single terahertz antenna element are integrated Splicing forms a huge terahertz antenna array containing 10 ⁷ terahertz antenna elements.

Figure 2 shows a huge array of antennas formed by splicing multiple wafers based on semiconductor technology. Because the current semiconductor silicon-based wafers have a limited diameter, such as a common 12-inch wafer with a diameter of 30cm, then in order to realize a large-diameter (such as 1m) antenna array, it is necessary to splice multiple 12-inch wafers to form an approximate circle. Shaped large-aperture massive antenna array system to increase the receiving area, gather the received energy, and reduce the alignment requirements of APT. In addition, the terahertz huge antenna array can resonate and absorb the incident wave of a specific frequency. On the one hand, it can amplify the received signal, and on the other hand, it can suppress other non-resonant frequencies. This receiving method can achieve "monochromatic" reception. Reduces background noise.

The above is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and it should be pointed out that for those of ordinary skill in the art, some improvements and modifications can be made without departing from the technical principle of the present invention, but these improvements and Retouching should also be regarded as the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims (4)

1. a flood tide Terahertz antenna array for based semiconductor technique, is characterized in that: comprise 10 ⁴~ 10 ⁷a magnitude Terahertz bay, described Terahertz antenna array carries out arrangement by multiple Terahertz bay and is formed, adopt CMOS technology line by the synthesis of integrated Terahertz phased-array antenna array implementation space energy on silicon-based wafer and Wave beam forming, form the narrow beam antenna of high-gain; Single Terahertz bay is of a size of 1mm magnitude, and the disk aerial array of 1 meter of magnitude radius comprises 3.14 × (1000) ²=314 ten thousand magnitudes single Terahertz bay, thus provide the gain of 60dB for the THz wave of 300GHz frequency, its beamwidth is 0.14 °.

2. the flood tide Terahertz antenna array of based semiconductor technique according to claim 1, is characterized in that: CMOS technology line is the one in 40 nanometer CMOS process lines, 65 nanometer CMOS process lines, 0.13 micrometre CMOS process line, 0.18 micrometre CMOS process line.

3. the flood tide Terahertz antenna array of based semiconductor technique according to claim 1, is characterized in that: be spliced by the multi-disc 12 cun or multi-disc 8 cun of silicon-based wafers that are integrated with Terahertz bay.

4. the flood tide Terahertz antenna array of based semiconductor technique according to claim 3, is characterized in that: described silicon-based wafer is 12 cun of silicon-based wafers, these 12 cun of silicon-based wafers adopts 0.13 micrometre CMOS process line to be integrated with 10 ⁴16 such 12 cun of silicon-based wafers being integrated with single Terahertz bay are spliced to form and comprise 10 by the single Terahertz bay of the order of magnitude ⁷the flood tide Terahertz antenna array of a magnitude Terahertz bay.