The VTT National Technical Research Center in Finland announced that the extremely high-frequency terahertz system integrated manufacturing technology successfully developed by the center will make telecommunication and imaging equipment smaller, lower cost, and higher frequency. This technology won the European microwave conference.
Currently, the use of systems with operating frequencies in excess of 100,000 megahertz is limited due to costly costs. In addition, current waveguide-based systems are too bulky to be used generically. The technology is based on silicon wafers and active millimeter wave monolithic integrated circuits (MMICs) for micromachined waveguide fabrication. The waveguide allows the signal to be transmitted to the MMIC circuit with low power consumption, and also serves as a housing solution for the MMIC circuit.
According to R&D personnel, this new solution can reduce the production cost of the terahertz system, and it is expected to reduce the cost to the current level.