A Robust High-Linear 76–81 GHz Automotive Radar IQ Receiver Frontend in 22 nm FD-SOI CMOS

A 76–81 GHz automotive radar IQ receiver (RX) frontend in a 22nm FD-SOI CMOS technology is presented. It consists of low-noise amplifiers, mixers, IQ generation, LO amplifiers, and a transimpedance amplifier followed by the baseband blocks. The RX is part of a radar system-on-chip and is packaged in a flip-chip ball grid array then soldered into a printed circuit board. The main parameters are measured while sweeping RF frequency and an extended temperature range from -40°C to 140°C. The measured gain varies by only +/- 0.6 dB across frequency and temperature, showing its robustness. The image rejection ratio stays above 26 dB. The nominal output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR1dB) at the input-referred 1 dB compression point (IP1dB) is 163dB (SNR1dB = IP1dB + 174 - NF) and stays above 160 dB. This is state of the art for CMOS RXs considering the trade-off between noise figure (NF) and IP1dB.