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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - iBROW (Innovative ultra-BROadband ubiquitous Wireless communications through terahertz transceivers)

Teaser

Summary

The demand for broadband content and services has been growing at tremendous rates, and predictions indicate that wireless data-rates of multiple tens of Gbps will be required by the year 2020, essentially for short-range connectivity. Currently available wireless technology cannot support these future demands, and so there is an urgent need to develop new technology platforms that are cost and energy efficient to enable ubiquitous ultra-broadband wireless communications seamlessly integrated with high-speed fibre-optic networks, paving the way for 100 Gbps datarates in the long term. The frequency spectrum currently in use is not expected to be suitable to accommodate the predicted future data-rate requirements, and therefore there is a need to embrace higher frequency bands, above 60 GHz and up to 1 THz.

iBROW aims at developing a novel, low cost, energy-efficient and compact ultra-broadband short-range wireless communication transceiver technology, capable of addressing predicted future network usage requirements. This will be pursued through the exploitation of Resonant Tunnelling Diode (RTD) devices which represent the fastest pure solid-state electronic devices operating at room temperature with reported working frequencies exceeding 1 THz. Through the development of a unified technology that can be integrated into both ends of the wireless link, namely consumer portable devices and fibre-optic supported base-stations, the project aims at increasing the RTD output power, optical detection efficiency and energy efficiency at target frequencies, developing a methodology for low cost RTD manufacturing on a silicon platform, photonic integration and packaging, as well as identifying appropriate communication methods and architectures to enable its deployment in 10 Gbps short-range wireless communication devices in short term and paving the way for 100 Gbps in long term for both the mm-wave and THz frequency bands, seamlessly integrated with optical fibre networks

Work performed

iBROW is a collaborative research project supported by the European Commission through Horizon 2020. The project will address the growing requirement for high bit rate short range wireless communication. It is expected that data traffic from wireless devices will soon exceed that from wired devices. Most of this traffic is video, with the fraction of high resolution video steadily increasing. Forecasts suggest that wireless data rates of multiple tens of Gbps will be required with a few years and this demand cannot be met with current technology.
The iBROW consortium believes that resonant tunnelling diode (RTD) transceiver technology could provide the solution. This low cost simple wireless transceiver architecture can achieve 10 Gbps by exploiting the mm-wave and THz frequency spectrum, and up to 100 Gbps is feasible in the longer term.
iBROW will run for three years and these bi-annual newsletters will report on the project progress, as well as news of other events and activities. More information is available on the project website (www.ibrow-project.eu).

A summary of public results achieved in Period 2 is given below:

High power RTDs
In the previous period RTD oscillators at several oscillation frequencies including 125 GHz, 165 GHz and 206 GHz, with 0.7 mW, 0.35 mW and 35 ÂµW output power respectively, were demonstrated, which represented a significant advance in the state-of-the-art.

In this period several world record power devices have been demonstrated, exceeding the project targets. UGLA has achieved a 312 GHz RTD oscillator with 1.1 mW output power (paper in preparation). World record high power 9 GHz opto-RTD oscillators (15 mW, paper in preparation) have also been demonstrated, which are important steps on the route to higher powers and efficiencies and for demonstrations of longer transmission distances.

RTD simulation software
In this period the RTD/RTD-LD circuit simulation package has been considerably extended and improved at UALG, and usable versions of the RTD I-V fitting application and the RTD/RTD-LD circuit simulation package completed.

RTDs on silicon
In this period iBROW has achieved its objectives on this topic and delivered the first RTD devices on silicon using both direct growth silicon substrates and bonded wafers with inverted RTD structures. The consortium believes that this is the first time that such structures have been reported. The next step will be to design and process III-V RTD oscillators on Si substrate.

Demonstration
The demonstration system has been defined, with component specifications for each of the elements. The components for the demo are currently being built and packaged, and the various necessary processes developed and optimised.

Dissemination
During this period the dissemination activity has been increased, with several newsletters, a further eight conference papers and three journal papers. iBROW also had a very strong presence at European Microwave Week 2016, including a booth where among others 300 GHz oscillators were show-cased, a technical workshop, and several regular conference papers from partners UGLA and UALG.

Standards
In this period iBROW has built on this foundation and is embedded as an integral part of the IEEE Terahertz Interest Group (IGThz) and the 100 Gbps wireless task group (TG3d). Four formal documents have been submitted to TG3d during this period and currently the iBROW proposal (with compatible contributions from a Japanese group) is under consideration as the IEEE standard for the THz physical layer (IEEE 802.15.3-THz PHY).

Final results

Several papers are in preparation, and consequently details may not yet be made public. However, these advances will be presented in the final project period.