A true-RMS integrated power sensor for on-chip calibration

An on-chip RF power sensor based on the bolometer principle is presented in this work. The sensor can be used for transmitter calibration purposes without using any RF equipment offering time and cost savings. Investigations on various layers of the f_T=170GHz SiGe bipolar technology, which is used in this work, are performed and evaluated. Especially silicided polysilicon layers show a promising behavior as bolometer. Measurements on a 76GHz transmitter chip are performed to point out the feasibility of the on-chip absolute RF power sensor. The results show that this novel sensor concept is well suited for on-chip self-calibration.