Highly Integrated Silicon (Si)-based RF electronics

Today’s warfighter is reliant upon more and more technological support to achieve strategic and tactical superiority over their enemies. Technological advantages include such items as night-vision equipment, unattended ground sensors (UGS), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), target tracking beacons, etc. To be effective, these need to be as small and as lightweight as possible. This leads to the drive for the integration of disparate technologies, such as high performance RF circuitry and large scale digital signal processing, into more and more dense circuits to achieve the maximum Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) reductions possible. The ability to increasingly integrate complex digital logic with analog/RF circuits on the same device, makes revolutionary new products feasible. As a case in point, Camgian Microsystems, is developing a revolutionary new UGS that combines radar, camera, digital signal processing and a communications system. The device must achieve lower power and area than are possible with discrete integration. This SBIR program will use this applications to push the limits of state-of-the-art, seeking to demonstrate the ability to provide revolutionary integration levels, combining high performance RF circuits with large quantities of complex digital logic, all on a low cost, small geometry silicon CMOS process.