SANTA CLARA, CAAgilent Technologies, Inc. and the University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas in Richardson, TX) will establish a millimeter- and sub-millimeter-wave electronics characterization facility at the Texas Analog Center of Excellence (TxACE). The facility will be available to industrial and government institutions using an open, collaborative framework. It will initially support research to make 77-to- 81-GHz short-range radar integrated circuits (ICs) affordable. In addition, researchers will be able to study the feasibility of 180-to-300-GHz spectrometry in complementary-metal-oxidesemiconductor (CMOS) technology for security and healthcare applications.
The first phase of the new facility will involve network and spectrum analyses as well as twotone linearity and noise-measurement capabilities to 325 GHz. In the subsequent phases, Agilent Technologies and UT Dallas/TxACE are committed to expand the test capability into the 500-GHz region and above as applications for high-frequency analog circuits demand a shared high- performance testing facility.
"One of TxACE's key goals is to help enable the emergence of silicon millimeter-wave and sub-millimeter-wave integrated circuits for the industry," explains Ken O, Director of TxACE and holder of the Texas Instruments Distinguished Chair at UT Dallas. "With a facility of this type in a university environment, critical barriers will be removed for research in this challenging measurement area."
"We are delighted to help establish the facility at TxACE for research in millimeter and terahertz analog circuit design," states Bill Wallace, Americas Region Director of University De-velopment at Agilent. "The research conducted by some of the most distinguished faculty in their field should lead to new disruptive technologies and positively impact our industry."
An emerging technology, millimeter-wave semiconductors offer applications in potentially everything from scanning people for weapons and monitoring air quality to enabling aircraft to operate more safely in dense fog and other poor weather conditions.