The complexity of vehicular communication and radar sensing becomes increasingly complex with the growing demand for advanced driver-assistant systems in the automotive industry. Researchers are currently looking into combining communication and sensing by utilizing traditional communication waveforms in the mmWave radar bands to mitigate congestion and inter-radar interference. This thesis investigates a local-oscillator (LO) phase-shifting architecture to simplify the implementation of D-band (110–170 GHz) phased arrays for such applications. The constructed signal chain includes four 8–12-GHz voltage-controlled analog phase shifters, each mounted on the LO feed of a quadrature subharmonic upconverter, and a four-channel slot antenna. Through careful calibration of the analog control voltages, the 100-MHz baseband feed, and the LO distribution, antenna measurements in an anechoic chamber resulted in a beambook with antenna diagrams at seven angles from −30° to +30°. The gain was between 10.78 dB and 12.80 dB relative to the gain of one element, and the sidelobe levels were less than 8.9 dB. / Fordononsindustrins ökade efterfrågan på avancerade assistansystem gör framtidens kommunikation och radaravkänning allt mer komplex. Forskare undersöker just nu möjligheten att integrera kommunikation och radar genom att använda traditionella vågformer på millimetervågsfrekvenser för att förhindra nätverksträngsel och interferens mellan närliggande sensorer. Detta examensarbete undersöker möjligheten att fasstyra en radarantenn genom att skifta fasen på sändarens lokaloscillator (LO) och på så sätt förenkla konstruktionen av fasade gruppantenner på D-bandet (110–170 GHz). Signalkedjan bestod av fyra spänningsstyrda 8–12 GHz-fasskiftare, var och en monterade på LO-matningen till en subharmonisk mixer, samt en fyrkanals slitsantenn. Genom noggrann kalibrering av kontrollspänningar, 100 MHz-basbandsmatning och LO-distribution kunde antennmätningar i en ekofri kammare påvisa de önskade antenndiagramen för sju vinklar mellan −30° och +30°. Förstärkningen i förhållande till ett antennelement var mellan 10.78 dB och 12.80 dB och sidlobsnivåerna var lägre än 8.9 dB.

Novel polymer-enhanced photodefined through-silicon via (TSV) and passive technologies have been demonstrated for silicon interposers to obtain compact heterogeneous computing and mixed-signal systems. These technologies include: (1) Polymer-clad TSVs with thick (~20 µm) liners to help reduce TSV losses and stress, and obtain optical TSVs in parallel for interposer-to-interposer long-distance communication; (2) Polymer-embedded vias with copper vias embedded in polymer wells to significantly reduce the TSV losses; (3) Coaxial vias in polymer wells to reduce the TSV losses with controlled impedance; (4) Antennas over polymer wells to attain a high radiation efficiency; and (5) High-Q inductors over polymer wells. Cleanroom fabrication and characterization of the technologies have been demonstrated. For the fabricated polymer-clad TSVs, resistance and synchrotron x-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements have been demonstrated. High-frequency measurements up to 170 GHz and time-domain measurements up to 10 Gbps have been demonstrated for the fabricated polymer-embedded vias. For the fabricated coaxial vias and inductors, high-frequency measurements up to 50 GHz have been demonstrated. Lastly, for the fabricated antennas, measurements in the W-band have been demonstrated.