29 June 2018

CST Global shares iBROW and WiPHi project findings at University of Glasgow’s THz Electronics Workshop

© Semiconductor Today Magazine / Juno PublishiPicture: Disco’s DAL7440 KABRA laser saw.

The most recent THz Electronics Workshop at Scotland’s University of Glasgow shared research findings and discussed current and future trends in terahertz electronics, which is currently breaking into many major application fields such as wireless, medical, non-destructive materials testing, radar, security, food processing and space.

Chaired by Dr Edward Wasige (High Frequency Electronics Group Leader at the University of Glasgow) and attended by over 100 scientists and engineers from across Europe, the THz Electronics Workshop provided a platform for presenting the findings of two ongoing wireless-over-fiber projects: iBROW and WiPHi. Both projects are collaborations between the University of Glasgow and III-V optoelectronic foundry Compound Semiconductor Technologies Global Ltd (CST Global) of Blantyre (near Glasgow), and both are managed by the university’s Dr Edward Wasige and Dr Horacio Cantu (research engineer at CST Global).

iBROW is an European Union (EU)-funded Horizon 2020 project, completing in June. “It has helped establish optimal, wireless, mm-wave carrier frequencies for high-speed communications using 84-300GHz,” notes Horacio. “It has also investigated wireless baseband to optical domain conversion at wavelengths of 1270, 1310 and 1550nm. The baseband data rates investigated were 10Gbps and above,” he adds.

WiPHi is a UK government-funded Innovate UK project (running from January to December) with the additional commercial partner Optocap Ltd. The project is focused on 60GHz wireless transmission and baseband conversion for optical domain networks using RTD-LD (resonant tunneling diode-laser diode) drivers, which include distributed feedback (DFB) lasers made by CST Global. WiPHi is investigating 1310nm and 1550nm wavelengths for indoor communications using the existing V-band communications framework. The data rate possible with WiPHi technology is around 7Gbps, with low-latency, increased transmission speed, immunity from interference, enhanced security, and a reduction in component count and antenna size.

Academic speakers at the THz Electronics Workshop included professor Elliott R. Brown of Wright State University and professor Imran Mehdi of JPL-NASA in the USA, and professor Masahiro Asada of Tokyo Institute of Technology and professor Tadao Nagatsuma of Osaka University in Japan.

See related items:

CST Global proves multi-gigabit transmission feasibility with detuned 1270nm DFB lasers facilitating 5G 60GHz radio over fiber

CST Global receives £108,000 from UK government to lead 60GHz radio-over-fiber project

CST Global presents detuned DFB lasers for increased modulation efficiency in fiber-optic transmission

EC awards €4m for project iBROW to develop innovative broadband wireless communications

Tags: CSTG Terahertz

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