Development of Advanced Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Frontend Integrated Circuits for Radiometer in Cubesats

Advanced microwave and millimeter-wave (MMW) integrated circuits (ICs) and module will be developed for the applications of the radiometer in Cubesats. The ICs will be designed using several silicon-based and GaAs processes provided by the domestic semiconductor foundries. The developed ICs and module will feature compact size, low weight, and low dc power consumption to satisfy the specification of the 2-Unit Cubesat. The developed radiometer should have high sensitivity of power detection, low equivalent noise, and low dc power consumption, the three spectral windows are 22, 29-32, and 89 GHz, respectively, for the atmospheric water vapor measurement. During the project progress, the research works contain the development of the system analysis, MMW ICs, and the package technology for the radiometer. The developed ICs include switch, low noise amplifier, mixer, power detector, and local oscillation source, and they will be further employed in the radiometer module. The developed circuits and module will be evaluated with temperature variation to achieve the design goals of the Cubesats. In the receiver, we will focus on the research of low noise figure and high conversion gain. In the local oscillation source, we will focus on the research of low phase noise and low jitter. The establishment of the MMW radiometer technology, the innovative ICs, the related measurement technology, and the innovative frontend ICs and modules will be achieved. The system planning, IC design, chip layout, fabrication and chip evaluation will be exercised during the three years. The design will also be completed and sent to the foundry for fabrication. In last, the measurement and analysis of the developed MMW frontend ICs and module will be carried out.