Millimetre wave radio technology, from 40GHz upwards, has traditionally been limited to military systems and radar. And it has been limited by being costly to produce and not very scalable. This is not the preserve of ordinary silicon technology, and is only now able to use silicon germanium (SiGe). Instead it is Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) and indium Phosphide (InP) and big, chunky machine metal blocks that are needed for millimetre systems.
Part of the problem is that at these frequencies, 40GHz to 100GHz, the many of the field effects of the electronics are actually above the device, rather than inside it, and so precisely shaped cavities are needed, and this is expensive to develop, make and tune, says CEO Rodger Sykes.
MMIC Solutions was set up to commercialise the millimetre wave space, from 40GHz upwards, with a technology that allows systems to be made dramatically smaller and cheaper. It has an exclusive license for technology from UK defence research organisation Qinetic that allows subsystems to be built with much cheaper materials, making them 10 or twenty times cheaper. This opens up several new application areas, says Sykes, and also the possibility to use more integrated devices for the first time that can also reduce costs even further.
The company closed a funding round of over £2.5m earlier this year, on top of £1m seed funding to commercialise the technology in several application areas, although home networking is not one of them as there are many competing companies in that area, says Sykes.
Instead imaging is a key opportunity, he says, as millimetre waves penetrate clothing but are reflected by skin. This allows it to be used as a screening technology to detect objects under clothing, and is not limited to metal detection. This is key for airport security, as it would detect non-metallic guns and knives, as well as drugs, and the UK's customs service is already using such cameras to detect drug smugglers. The real value is that a highly sensitive, low noise system can use the ambient radiation and not require additional sources, so cameras and sensors can be placed anywhere. The MMIC technology can cut the cost of these scanners and cameras to a tenth of their current cost, and this is the area where the company already has paying customers for 94GHz subsystems.
The 60-65GHz V band is unregulated, and there are opportunities for communication equipment makers to get bandwidth of over 1Gbit/s for metro area wireless networks, but the cost of equipment is currently too high. Similarly the regulated 75-95GHz E band is of interest to cellular operators for higher bandwidth backhaul to link their cell sites to the Internet if the cost is right. Reducing the cost of transceivers brings both these areas would open up new markets, says Sykes, and products for these markets will be out at the end of this year.
Similarly radar systems in cars are still expensive, but reducing the cost could make adaptive cruise control as common as ultrasound parking sensors in the future. There is also the opportunity to integrate more of the processing into the sub-system to make it easier to install in the vehicle.
Military and aerospace is where the technology started, and making millimetre wave equipment much smaller and lighter has significant appeal to the military and aerospace markets. Qinetic is a key equipment provider in these areas, and MMIC works closely with Qinetic on many projects, says Sykes, with unmanned aircraft (UAVs)and radar systems obvious opportunities that would benefit from the commercialisation and lower costs.
There are also opportunities in biotech and healthcare, although these are further out, says Sykes. Millimetre waves penetrate a few millimetres below the skin to the nerve endings and so have opportunities as a non-invasive anaesthetic.
All of these can be done with the existing technology, which allows existing devices to be put into smaller, cheaper packages. But this also opens up several opportunities for integration as more integrated devices can be used effectively without having to be tuned. While MMIC buys in devices today, there is the opportunity to develop its own devices and that work has already started, says Sykes.
- MMIC Solutions Ltd is based in Bromesberrow, Herefordshire, UK. www.mmicsolutions.com