Multi-Port Integrated Antennas and Transceiver Architectures for Antenna-Level Signal Processing for Future mm-Wave Systems

As wireless systems approach the range of frequencies towards 100GHz and beyond, electromagnetic interfaces in forms of integrated antennas emerge as an alternative. This is a critical feature since extraction of mm-Wave signals is otherwise nontrivial, in part due to the sensitivity to parasitics. The co-integration with the transceiver system allows us to move away from the classical single-port antenna/transceivers for each element to multi-port architectures. This can allow dynamic and electronic reconfiguration of the element patterns and enable antenna-level processing of signals in a manner distinct from classical arrays. This includes the ability to reject interferers passively at the antenna level, to allowing spatial, frequency and pattern diversity for reconfigurable interfaces. The approach, however, makes the design space coupled and seemingly more complex. In this talk, I will highlight some approaches across 30–80GHz on integrated systems and their functionalities that exploit this co-design space and comment on future opportunities.