PhD Defense of ISKANDAR Zyad

The sub-millimeter wave band that covers the frequency range from 300 GHz to 3 THz has an interesting properties such the ability to penetrate materials. For THz imaging, it is possible to detect objects inside packages, clothes... With the evolution of integrated technologies and the increase of the cut-off frequencies of transistors 〖(f〗_t/f_max), many circuits and systems have been fabricated around 300 GHz, especially phased arrays for beamforming applications. These systems generate a signal and steer it electronically in a direction of the space. In this work, a novel architecture of phased array is proposed. It is based on the generation of a signal in the 270-300 GHz band, while controlling its phase by using phase shifters implemented in the LO path in the 45-50 GHz band. Each bloc should be measured in a stand-alone version, in order to get an idea about whole system performances. For this, the transmitter in the 270-300 GHz band has been realized first. It consists of a sub-harmonic injection locked oscillator, a passive mixer and IF amplifiers. Then, a novel architecture of phase shifter was proposed, it is based on slow waves coupled lines. Finally, a frequency multiplier chain was performed to generate the injection signal by using a lower frequency signal (3-5 GHz). The circuits are fabricated in a 55nm BiCMOS technology from STMicroelectronics. Measurements results are in a good agreement with simulations. Once the blocks are validated, sub systems are realized in order to validate one path of the array. The perspectives of this work include the design and realization of the complete phased array with multiple paths/antennas.