STW Take-off phase1: High gamma vector network analysis (HΓ-VNA)

Themes: Characterization and modelling up to sub THz

HΓ-VNA targets the implementation of a new measurement technique, enabling accurate characterization of electronic devices as well as biological and organic materials, which share the common characteristic of presenting extreme loading condition (i.e., very low/very high impedances), in the RF/Microwave frequency range. By employing a simple circuit architecture and dedicated calibration procedure/artefacts, the proposed technique aims to drastically reduce the inaccuracy associated to extreme impedance measurements, improving (i.e., in terms of quality and time-to-market) the design flow of electronic devices approaching the nano-dimension (i.e., extremely miniaturized CMOS devices, carbon nano-tubes, nano-dots, ultrathin graphene ribbons) which are expected to complement and possibly substitute the present integrated device technology in the coming decade.

The proposed approach is based on an interferometric technique and an IQ-steering modulation capable to enhance the capabilities of VNAs when measuring high reflection coefficients (|Γ|>0.8), realizing what we refer as High Gamma Vector Network Analyzer (HΓ-VNA). During this project, our goal is to realize a standalone prototype which will work as an add-on block for commercially available VNAs (from all vendors) in the frequency range below 10 GHz. This system will also be deployed to a first beta customer to better understand the requirement of the customers and fine-tune the system performances. In the meanwhile, a lower integration prototype will be developed to cover the entire RF VNAs bandwidth (i.e., 50 MHz to 26 GHz) in order to attract the interest of large measurement instrumentation players (i.e., Keysight Technologies, Rohde and Schwarz and Anritsu).