These technologies are essential for future applications in the Internet of Things (IoT), Industry 4.0, automotive safety (e.g. autonomous driving) and telecommunications (5G/6G). Participating partners face the challenge of integrating complex systems for novel mmWave applications. In doing so, more stringent bandwidth, performance and power requirements must be met. Current architectures and tools reach their limits in the high GHz range. To overcome these challenges, new processes and materials must be introduced or investigated. Co-design, co-integration and scaling play a critical role in improving system performance and overall production yield. Therefore, close collaboration between component manufacturers, system integrators and test companies is required to manage the complexity in terms of capacity , cost, performance, yield and reliability. In addition, new reusable circuit architectures and design methodologies need to be explored, as existing standard design automation (EDA) tools do not cover the high-frequency domain.

Within the project, Fraunhofer IIS/EAS contributes its expertise in packaging, component design and design tool development. Special attention is given to the investigation of design automation for the co-design of chips and packages with millimeter waves. By using new simulation and design tools as well as measurement methods, demonstrators are developed to meet the requirements of mmWave designs.