A Compact Hybrid G-band Heterodyne Receiver Integrated with Millimeter Microwave Integrated Circuits and Schottky Diode-Based Circuits
, Liang Zhang 1,2, Ruoxue Li 1,2, Yaoling Tian 1,2, Yue He 1,2, Jun Jiang 1,2,*, Xianjin Deng 1,2 and Wei Su 2
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript demonstrated a compact module of G-band heterodyne receiver. The authors designed and fabricated the module, with waveguides and filters for LO, RF, and IF signals. This module also contains a sextupler MMIC chip, an LNA chip, and a Schottky diode. The authors designed a module assembly method to solder different MMICs and Schottky diodes in the same module. The receiver’s size is 27×20×20 mm3, providing a 15 dB conversion gain and a 1050 K noise temperature in the 195-230 GHz band.
After careful reviewing of the paper and keeping in line with the qualities of papers in Electronics, I do not recommend publication in Electronics in the current form because of the lack of originality. The following are my comments.
1. The main contribution of this work is to design a compact module to house the LNA, LO, and mixer in the same module. While this is more compact than the discrete configuration of each component, there are single-chip G-band receivers which integrated antennas, LNA, mixer, and LO on the same chip (for example ref[1]). Therefore, I don’t see much novelty in demonstrating only a more compact assembly solution for many discrete components.
2. The authors should provide more information about the MMICs and Schottky diodes used in the receiver. What are the conversion gain and noise figure of the LNA and mixer?
3. It would be good to provide the frequency range of those abbreviated bands, e.g., G band and W band, for more general readers.
4. Line 27: It would be good to provide a reference for the THz wave’s fast transmission speed.
5. Line 33: Please provide some references for security imaging and earth observation.
6. Line 92&93: There are two “According to”.
7. Following the previous comments, what happens if the gold wire’s diameter, length, or arc change? I don’t get the information from Fig. 3b.
8. Line 123: What does “LO waveguide reduction” mean?
9. Line 124-126: Why a high impedance at the IF port can reduce the LO signal power required by the mixer?
10. Each component in Fig. 6 should be labeled.
11. Figure 11(b): why does S11 change at different LO power?
12. Line 226: “TMIC” -> “MMIC”
13. Line 229: “Just flip the low noise amplifier chip in the receiver around”: This sentence is not scientific.
[1] Abbasi, Morteza, et al. "Single-chip 220-GHz active heterodyne receiver and transmitter MMICs with on-chip integrated antenna." IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques 59.2 (2010): 466-478.
The writing can be improved.
There are many places where there is no space between the period and the next sentence.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors present a rather small G-band receiver module incorporating Millimeter Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMICs) and a Schottky-diode-based circuit.
In the text segment: "As a result, this terahertz receiver provides recorded miniaturized hardware", the meaning of "recorded" needs to be clarified.
The text segment "... bonding wire. According to Figure 3(b), According to the simulation results, a gold wire ..." makes no sense, and needs to be reworked.
The following conclusions are not supported by the results presented, and need to be rephrased/modified:
- "... the transmission loss at 220 GHz is just 0.65 dB."
- "... the return loss S11 of the receiver's IF port is better than 10 dB over a 20 GHz band from 0 to 20 GHz ..."
- In the Abstract, "... noise temperature of the receiver operating in 195~230 GHz ... 1050 K, ...", and in the Conclusion, "..., and its noise temperature is 1050 K."
Regarding the title of Table I: "... in the similar frequency range", and the text segment: "The reported terahertz receivers in the nearby frequency band are compared ...", please mention/define the exact frequency range/band and not just "nearby/similar frequency band/range".
The Figures and their captions should not be compacted with the text, adequate space for them and the text should be provided; there is no page limit, as far as I am aware.
In the text, the noise temperature range is 1009-1158, while in Table I, it is given as 1009-1154. This needs to be fixed.
In the Abstract, it is written that the "... noise temperature of the receiver operating in 195~230 GHz ... [is] 1050 K, ...", and in the Conclusion "... its noise temperature is 1050 K.", while as stated before, the noise temperature ranges between 1009 and 1158 K (thus the mean is 1083.5)... Even for the conditions for which the noise temperature ranges between 1009 and 1088 K, the mean is 1048.5 K, not 1050 K. This needs to be addressed.
Regarding Reference [1]: "6G White Paper. Available online: https://www.oulu.fi/6gflagship/6g-white-papers (accessed on 27. 4. 2022).", it needs to be clarified which 6G white paper should be referenced, as there are more than one in the link provided.
Nevertheless, in general, the manuscript is well-written, and its topic is rather interesting and novel. The article also appears to be rather valid and sound. However, some of the conclusions need to be reworked, and a few other points need to be addressed. To this end, I attach a commented version of the submitted article.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
The manuscript is well-written, with only a few language issues. To this end, I attach a commented version of the submitted article.
More specifically, some articles may be missing, the abbreviated words resulting in acronyms need to be capitalised accordingly, all the acronyms need to be defined, and some nouns acting as compound adjectives need to be hyphenated. Subsection titles also need to be capitalised accordingly. A period sign (full stop) is not needed between the figure number and the subfigure letter, and should be removed when present. Sometimes, spaces need to be inserted between words or after a full stop (period sign). Convert "Fig." into "Figure". In "80*40*20" on Table I, use the times symbol.
Regarding the References, spaces among their different components, e.g., author names, titles of works cited, conference titles / journal names, etc., are needed. Also, the authors' names need to be correctly and uniformly formatted. For example, "Oupeng Li; Jia He;,et al.Integrated", features a semicolon (;) followed by a comma (,) and "et al.", while a space is needed between "al." and "Integrated".
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The new manuscript has been greatly improved. All my questions are answered. I recommend its publication.
The English writing has been improved.
