Motorola, Phiar team on terahertz circuits

MANHASSET, N.Y. — Motorola and Phiar Corp. have announced an agreement to create next generation electronic circuits which can be incorporated with tiny antennas to deliver high-speed millimeter wave receive arrays.

The joint development effort will utilize metal-insulator technology from Phiar (Boulder, Co.) and the millimeter wave circuits and systems technology, modeling and simulation, device and circuit characterization and advanced prototyping capabilities of Motorola (Tempe, Ariz.).

Both companies plan to develop low-cost, next generation receive arrays capable of running in the hundreds of gigahertz and potentially into the terahertz range. The circuits can be incorporated into multiple high-speed applications including device-to-device wireless communications, personal consumer near-field communications, as well as medical imaging, automotive radar, homeland security scanning, and defense applications.

The enabling metal-insulator technology from Phiar can be broadly incorporated with circuits which use standard CMOS manufacturing as well as other semiconductor and printed circuit technologies. Because the technology is compatible with multiple standards and substrates, it has the potential to greatly improve the speed and simplify interconnects for high-speed radar and imaging devices.

"We view the metal-insulator technology from Phiar, combined with Motorola's technology and expertise, as being an innovative approach to potentially providing the device speeds that will be required in future generations of wireless, radar and imaging solutions provided by Motorola," said Vida Ilderem, vice president and director of the Center of Excellence for Embedded Systems and Physical Sciences Research, Motorola Labs, in a statement.