Session 23 Overview: THz Circuits and Front-Ends Rf Subcommittee

The THz frontier continues to be pushed by mainstream-CMOS circuits with excellent performance. The papers present diverse circuits and front-ends extending state of the art on linearity, signal generation/steering, and detection sensitivity. The first paper presents a THz upconverter leveraging the benefit of parametric gain using optimally biased varactors for enhanced even-order harmonic generation. A THz 2D beamsteering pixel-array source with the capability to spatially and electronically steer is presented in the second paper. The session continues with an ultra-low power and area THz detector with leading-edge noise performance and concludes with a W-band PLL demonstrating best-in-class jitter and FoM.