An Overview of State-of-the-Art D-Band Radar System Components

In this article, a literature study has been conducted including 398 radar circuit elements from 311 recent publications (mostly between 2010 and 2022) that have been reported mainly in the F-, D- and G-Band (80–200 GHz). This study is intended to give a state-of-the-art comparison on the performance of the different technologies—RFCMOS, SiGe/BiCMOS and III–V semiconductor composites—regarding the most crucial circuit parameters of Voltage-Controlled Oscillators (VCO), Power Amplifiers (PA), Phase Shifters (PS), Low-Noise Amplifiers (LNA) and Mixers. The most common topologies of each circuit element as well as the differences between the technolgies will futher be laid out while reasoning their benefits. Since not all devices were derived solely from single device publications, necessary steps to yield as fairly a comparison as possible were taken. Results include the area and power efficiency in RFCMOS, superior noise and power performance in III–V semiconductors and a continuous compromise between efficiency and performance in SiGe. The most rarely published devices, being Mixers and PSs, in the given frequency range have also been identified to give incentive for further developments.