RTUIF16
A 77GHz Automotive Radar Receiver in a Wafer Level Package
Christoph Wagner 1 , Josef Bock 2 , Maciej Wojnowski 2 , Herbert Jager 1 , Johannes Platz 1 , Markus Treml 1 ,
Florian Dober 1 , Rudolf Lachner 2 , Jurgen Minichshofer 1 , Linus Maurer 1
1 Danube Integrated Circuit Engineering, Freistadter Str. 400, A-4040 Linz, Austria
2Infineon Technologies AG, Am Campeon 1-12, D-85579 Neubiberg, Germany
E-Mail: christoph.wagner@infineon.com
Abstract In this paper, a 77-GHz radar receiver is presented,
which comes in a wafer level package and thus eliminates
the need for wire bonding yielding significant cost reduction.
The high integration level available in the productive Silicon-
Germanium (SiGe) technology used in this paper allows for
implementation of in-system monitoring of the receiver con-
version parameters. This facilitates the realization of ISO 26262
compliant radar sensors for automotive safety applications.
Index Terms 77-GHz, automotive radar, SiGe technology,
eWLB package, BITE.
I. I NTRODUCTION
The demonstration of Silicon-Germanium (SiGe) HBT or
even CMOS integrated circuits for millimeter-wave applica-
tions such as 77-GHz automotive radar [1][3] or 60-GHz
communications [4][7] has given rise to the sales volume
of systems built from these highly-integrated components.
Increasing volumes typically result in cost reduction which
in turn contributes to even higher customer interest. New-
generation automotive radar sensors such as the long-range
radar sensor LRR3 [8] profit from the cost reduction that can
be gained by manufacturing of integrated circuits in mass-
productive SiGe technologies.
However, there are still a number of factors to be considered
in order to achieve even better market penetration. One of
them is the mounting and connection of such circuits to
the application board. In the moment, the state-of-the-art
is bare-die SiGe chips glued and wire-bonded to a printed
circuit board (PCB). This is a very special manufacturing
technique that is not readily available on most production sites
of sensor module suppliers and communication engineering
companies. Even if wire-bonding can be made available, its
major drawback is the additional cost for the assembly process
as such but also for the PCB, because wire-bonding calls
for special surface preparation such as Au passivation on top
of the Cu traces or even micromachining of e.g. cavities to
improve the RF performance of the bond transition.
With the increasing demand for self-surveillance of sensor
components driven by safety-relevant applications such as
emergency braking assistance, another challenge for the circuit
designer is the resulting complexity of the analog RF circuitry.
This paper presents a 77-GHz automotive radar receiver in
a wafer-level package, which allows for standard mounting
processes and provides in-system monitoring facilitating the
978-1-4673-0416-0/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE
implementation of ISO 26262 safety-relevant driver assistance
systems.
II. WAFER - LEVEL PACKAGE TECHNOLOGY FOR 77-GH Z
AUTOMOTIVE RADAR APPLICATIONS
While packaging technologies for millimeter-wave frequen-
cies are already available [9], [10] and packaged MMICs have
been demonstrated [11][13], no automotive qualified produc-
tive package can be found on the market until now. Recently,
Infineon Technologies introduced a wafer-level package called
Embedded Wafer-Level Ball Grid Array (eWLB) which has
been proven to be applicable for 77-GHz integrated circuits
[12], [14]. Infineon is currently pushing the development of the
eWLB technology forward towards automotive qualification
according to AEC-Q100, making this packaging technology a
perfect choice for automotive applications.
The core process of this technology is the encapsulation
of silicon dies, which effectively decouples the silicon die
size from the package dimension. This so-called reconstitution
step produces wafers of mold compound with embedded
silicon dies. Next a redistribution layer is added on top of the
reconstituted wafer. Note that this can now be implemented as
batch process in contrast to single-die processing, allowing for
a cost-effective packaging solution. The redistribution layer
is based on copper metalization embedded in a dielectric
layer and delivers adequate RF performance up to and above
80 GHz. Additionally, the redistribution layer can incorporate
matching structures for optimization of the RF transition from
the silicon die to the eWLB package.
III. D ESIGN FOR MANUFACTURING
One of the key factors for optimizing the performance of
the packaged RF circuit is highly interactive co-design of
the SiGe chip with the eWLB package. This applies to the
floorplanning, the definition of the chip padframe along with
the eWLB ball assignment and especially to the transitions of
the RF signals from the Si die to the package as well as from
the package to the board.
The vital design steps include the depopulation of balls
above the silicon die in order to reduce the package influence
on sensitive RF parts of the circuit, as well as depopulation of
balls near the RF interfaces in order to facilitate the board
layout and thus optimize the applicability of the receiver.
Another very important option is the integration of thermoballs
511 2012 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium
working as heatsinks from the silicon to the board, effectively
reducing the thermal resistance of the package down to below
10 K/W.
In order to provide optimum integration of the circuit
into the application board, board-side matching structures are
supplied along with the eWLB packaged 77-GHz receiver
circuit. Thus, the reference plane for the specification of the
key performance parameters can be placed on the board and
defined for a reference impedance of 50 .
The packaged receiver is depicted in Fig. 1. Here, the mold
compound can be identified as the black area (66 mm2 )
surrounding the silicon die (33 mm2 ) in the center. The
connections from the silicon die to the solder balls are also
clearly visible. Note that this is a bottom view of the package
device this side is turned towards the board surface of the
application board. The symmetry plane introduced between
left and right half-circuit can easily be identified. A highly
symmetrical layout is absolutely necessary to minimize gain
or phase imbalance in the four receive channels. An overview
of the actual package specifications is given in Table I.
IV. D ESIGN FOR TEST
The presented 77-GHz radar receiver is manufactured in a
productive 200-GHz SiGe-C technology by Infineon. The full
potential of SiGe based circuits can be unleashed by pushing
towards highest integration. A number of four receive channels
is integrated on a single die, along with an LO phase shifter
and digital control logic. Additionally, a temperature sensor is
included for monitoring of the actual die temperature during
operation.
The realization of ISO 26262 compliant radar sensors along
with the production testing is facilitated by an integrated test
signal generator. Please refer to Fig. 2 for a block diagram of
the presented radar receiver. The test signal generation path
can be identified in the top section of this diagram, showing
the IQ modulator that works as a single-sideband modulator
with its baseband input connected to a digital control unit
sourced by an external input pin.
As indicated in Fig. 2, a common test signal is injected
through a passive signal distribution network into all four
receive channels with well defined amplitude and phase re-
lationships. Thus, gain and phase balance of the individual
channels can be evaluated on-the-fly and issues with signal
level or relative phase can be identified online and possibly
be compensated for. The test signal is input to the circuit
from a CMOS compatible pin and converted to a complex
baseband signal in the digital domain by using a divide-by-4
circuit. Note that due to this digital algorithm the resulting test
signal will show relatively high odd order harmonics, which
can however be accepted in this case.
The upconversion of the resulting single-sideband signal
is performed by an RF digital-analog converter (RFDAC) as
indicated in Fig. 3. Note that the DAC current output is directly
connected to the switching quad consisting of T1T4, resulting
in a reuse of the control current in the actual RF circuitry.

Fig. 1. In this photograph of an eWLB packaged 77-GHz radar receiver,

the mold compound can be identified as black area (66 mm2 ) surrounding
the silicon die (33 mm2 ). The connections from the silicon die to the solder
balls are also clearly visible. Note that this is a bottom view of the package
device this side is turned towards the board surface of the application board.

TABLE I
77-GH Z RADAR RECEIVER PACKAGE SPECIFICATION

Package width (mm) 6

Package length (mm) 6
Package height, soldered (mm) 0.7
Ball pitch (m) 500
Number of populated balls 112
Number of single-ended RF transitions 4
Number of differential RF transitions 1 Fig. 3. The IQ modulator in the test signal path is realized by an
RFDAC approach using a combined output matching network at the nodes
CON/CONx. Thus, the DAC current is effectively reused by the IQ modulator.

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Fig. 2. The block diagram of the 77-GHz radar receiver is shown. The four receive channels are indicated by the four cascaded squares. Two RFDACs are
integrated in order to allow amplitude and phase control of the mixer LO signal as well as to generate an optional mixer test signal. The signal level at the
RFDAC outputs can be monitored by integrated power sensors.

Furthermore, the LO signal for the mixers can be adjusted in to the device under test (DUT). It is important to note
amplitude and phase by internal control registers via RFDACs that HWG based setups are the key to repeatable on-board
similar to the test signal path. Note that an optional external characterization when it comes to contacting a large number of
input allows for dynamic modulation of the LO RFDAC boards in order to generate enough statistics about the circuit
that can be used for applying an offset frequency to the parameters. The characterization board includes a microstrip-
mixer LO signal, effectively generating a heterodyne mode HWG transition and a microstrip connection line to the board-
in contrast to the standard zero-IF mode. The benefit in the package interface, which can be characterized on special test
actual application is reduced IF noise due to the shift of the structures for scalar deembedding of the actual measurement
IF spectrum away from DC and thus away from 1/f noise in results.
the baseband circuitry. More over, also signal processing can Please refer to Table II for a list of key parameters and
facilitate the additional information gained in a heterodyne according performance data. As previously mentioned, all re-
radar such as the sign of the Doppler-induced frequency shift ported parameters include the eWLB package, the transition to
in moving-target scenarios. the application board as well as the board matching structure.
Using appropriate register settings for the LO RFDAC, Please note that the reported values are valid for the nominal
a complex receive signal can be generated by time-domain supply voltage of 3.3 V and are typical characterization results.
multiplexing. To do this, two phase settings with 90 relative
phase shift are applied to two consecutive radar measurements. TABLE II
Note that this feature again can be used to eliminate ghost T YPICAL CHARACTERIZATION RESULTS
target problems related to Doppler shifts with negative sign in
40 C 25 C 125 C
frequency, but now without having to modulate the LO signal Gain GC (dB) 17.5 16.5 15.0
dynamically. Compression point P1dB (dBm) -4.0 -3.0 -1.5
A compensation circuit to eliminate DC-offsets at the IF IF Noise Floor N (dBm/Hz) -143.5 -143.0 -142.5
outputs is integrated to ease the application of the presented Noise Figure NF (dB) 13.0 14.5 16.5
Typical power consumption PDC (mW) 780 850 950
receiver in actual radar systems. Its resolution is 2 bit plus sign
bit with a step size of 330 mV.
Note that according to the results of the transmitter com-
V. C HARACTERIZATION RESULTS panion chip reported in [15], a typical figure-of-merit defined
The packaged 77-GHz radar receiver performance is eval- as FOM = GC N + PTX of 171.7 dB can be reached using a
uated on-board in a lab environment using hollow waveg- packaged two-chip solution, based on an available TX output
uides (HWG) as measurement interface for the connection power of PTX = 11.7 dBm.

513
 According to S-parameter measurements using a vector
network analyzer (VNA), the RF port reflection coefficient
is better than 15 dB and the LO port matching is better than
12 dB. Considering that these figures include the board influ-
ence, which can not be deembedded for the S-parameters, as
well as the chip-to-package and package-to-board interfaces,
it can be concluded that the RF performance of the eWLB
package transition to the application board works as expected.
The IF output spectrum of one of the four receive channels
for activated test signal is shown in Fig. 4. The input signal
at the digital test signal port is a 3.3 V-TTL signal with a
frequency of 400 kHz. The resulting beat tone in the IF is
100 kHz, where an amplitude of 17.43 dBm is measured
using an impedance converter between the mixer output and
the spectrum analyzer. According to the design of the digital
single-sideband signal generation unit, the third order har-
monic is only 10 dB below the beat signal, which is confirmed
by the measurement as well.
Fig. 4. The IF output spectrum of the receiver with enabled test signal
reports a signal level of 17.43 dBm with a third harmonic at 10 dBc, as
predicted by simulation.
Note that the entire signal path involved in RF down-
conversion is evaluated using this test signal measurement.
This includes the complete LO chain from the LO input
balls of the package to the mixer LO input, as well as the
mixer RF port and IF balls including subsequent baseband
processing. In contrast to currently available 77-GHz MMICs
this allows for significantly improved online monitoring of the
RF performance in the application.
VI. C ONCLUSION
A 77-GHz automotive radar receiver was presented fea-
turing a wafer-level package capable of providing adequate
RF performance for automotive radar systems. The packaged
receiver allows for significant cost reduction of automotive
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radar sensors and thus enables new fields of application.
The high integration level available in the productive SiGe
technology used in this paper allows for implementation of
in-system monitoring of the receiver conversion parameters.
This provides a first step towards the realization of ISO 26262
compliant radar sensors for safety applications.
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