Technologies Enabling Future Mobile Connectivity & Sensing

In today’s connected world, the demand for mobile communications and instant access to information, anytime and anywhere, has drastically changed the electronics landscape, both consumer and industrial. Novel 5G and 6G systems will enable connectivity in all forms between humans, devices, machines, and any objects. They will provide virtually ubiquitous, ultra-high bandwidth and low latency network access to individual users, as well as to all objects benefiting from being connected. They will be the "eyes and ears" of Artificial Intelligence systems as it will provide real-time data collection and analysis. Such diversity calls for a new paradigm in terms of flexibility, not only related to performance, but also in terms of scalability and cost.

5G and 6G communication systems imply a major stake of sovereignty and autonomy for the communication sector and digital infrastructures of the future. All products related to IoT, traffic, and health care, supported by connectivity will benefit the citizens in their daily lives to improve everything from business to private affairs. Together, this will influence society as much as smart phones did in the recent past. It is all about communication and connectivity.

This book provides an overview of the latest research results in this field. It is based on the close collaboration in the BEYOND5 project, extended with vision and roadmap insights by European experts leading the 6G development. The BEYOND5 project has built a completely European supply chain for Radio-Frequency Electronics, enabling new RF domains for sensing, communication, 5G radio infrastructure and beyond. Moving forward into higher frequency bands above 100 GHz for 6G, also more disruptive technologies, using heterogeneous integration of CMOS, SOI, and III/V components such as GaN or InP, and advanced packaging techniques will be necessary to realize the objectives of ubiquitous, ultra-high bandwidth and low latency networks.

The book bundles the scientific content of the International Workshop on "Technologies enabling future mobile connectivity & sensing" in Lisbon, Portugal 10 September 2023, as part of the ESSCIRC/ESSDERC 2023 European Solid-state Circuits and Devices Conference. Through articles and abstracts, a combined view of experts and practitioners representing academia, research, and industry in the field of wireless communication systems is given. They cover the topics of RF and digital SOI technology development for 5 and 6G, device and substrate characterization, packaging technology, and the realization of full systems including power amplifiers, linearization techniques, beamforming transceivers, access points, and radar detection.

François Brunier graduated as physics and electronics Engineer from Centrale-Supelec in 1997. From 1998 to 2002, he worked as device integration engineer for embedded DRAM products in STMicroelectronics Crolles. In 2002, he joined Soitec as head of advanced characterization laboratory. From 2009 to 2011, as a product manager, he led the RF-SOI and power SOI product development and offering. Since 2012, as a partnership program manager, he is in charge of European collaborative KDT programs, IPCEI and public relations.

Björn Debaillie leads imec’s collaborative R&D program on cutting-edge IoT technologies, covering high speed communications, high resolution sensing, and neuromorphic computing. As a seasoned researcher & manager, he is responsible for strategic collaborations and partnerships, innovation management, and public funding policies as well as the operational management and coordination across imec’s collaborative programs and projects. Björn Debaillie coordinates public funded projects and seeds new initiatives. He holds patents, received awards and authored books and international papers published in various journals and conference proceedings.

Dominique Morche received the M.Sc. degree in engineering from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Electricité et de Radioelectricité de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France, in 1990, and the Ph.D. degree in electronics from the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble, Grenoble, France, in 1994. His Ph.D. mainly focuses on sigma–delta AnalogTo-Digital Converter (ADC). From 1994 to 2001, he was with France Telecom, Meylan, France, as a Research Engineer. He has been involved in the architecture and design of analog circuits for telecom applications. He is currently with the Commissariat à l’énergie Atomique-Leti Minatec, Grenoble, where he is a Research Director. His current field of research is in the specification and design of RF architecture for UWB, mmwave, and the IoT systems.

Erkan Isa is with Fraunhofer EMFT since April’13, founding the IC Design group at this center. He holds PhD’12 in Microelectronics from EPFL, MS’06 in Microelectronics from TU Hamburg-Harburg, BS’05 in Computer Engineering from Istanbul Technical University (ITU), and BS’03 in Electronics and Comm. Eng. from ITU. From 2007 to 2010 he was with CEA-LETI, Grenoble, France, working on the design and optimization of A/D converters in deep sub-micron technologies. Between 2010 and 2013 he worked for Fujitsu Semiconductor Europe GmbH in Munich as an analog and mixed-signal design engineer, contributing to the key mixed-signal IPs for automotive SoC products. Dr. Isa serves as Group Manager and have been coordinating collaborative programs for Fraunhofer, e.g. SERENE-IoT (PENTA), THINGS2DO (ENIAC), ADMONT (ECSEL), WAYTOGO FAST (ECSEL), REFERENCE (ECSEL), OCEAN12 (ECSEL), BEYOND5 (ECSEL). Dr. Isa had served as Technical Program Chair and General Co-Chair for IEEE NEWCAS 2018 and NEWCAS 2019, respectively.

Jan Craninckx obtained his Ph.D. degree in microelectronics from the KULeuven in 1997 and was with Alcatel Microelectronics as a senior RF engineer until 2002. He then joined IMEC (Leuven, Belgium), where he currently is IMEC fellow for RF, mmwave, analog and mixed signal circuit design. Dr. Craninckx has authored and co-authored more than 200 papers, book chapters and patents, was Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE JSSC, and is an IEEE fellow.