The Physical Layer lab is a cutting-edge test and measurement environment for the characterization of high-speed, high-frequency and mixed-signal electronic circuits and subsystems for wireless, wireline and fiber-optic communication and instrumentation.
The measurement facilities are located in a temperature controlled Faradized lab of 160 m2 equipped with multiple large anti-vibration tables and a TS150-THz probe station for the testing of electro-optic devices and custom (co-)designed electronic and photonic chips in the mm-wave and THz frequency range.
Bit-error-rate (BER) measurements are performed in real-time up to 112Gb/s for NRZ signals and up to 128 Gbaud for multilevel signals like PAM-4 using offline signal processing. Such high-speed signals are directly created with a two-channel 256 GSa/s arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) providing signal bandwidths beyond 100 GHz. Similar lower-speed AWGs are available as well providing 4 channels at 92GSa/s and 65GSa/s. Real-time oscilloscopes are utilized with bandwidths of 63 and 65 GHz for the acquisition and analysis of complex modulated waveforms through digital signal processing in Python or Matlab. Furthermore, IDLab is part of ROAMI, a Flemish consortium coordinated by KULeuven, which shares a top notch 4-channel 110GHz real-time oscilloscope, granted by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and funded by the European Union - NextGenerationEU. Various (equivalent-time) sampling oscilloscopes with remote sampling heads up to 100 GHz (and 70 GHz) are also used to capture signal waveforms with higher resolution.
An 85 GHz signal and spectrum analyzer, along with a 67GHz 4-port non-linear vector network analyzer (VNA), are also available, equipped with hardware and software options for noise and distortion measurements. Range extenders up to 170GHz are shared with the IDLab-EM group.
In-house integration capabilities include wirebonding and fiber attach for initial sub-system assembly and functional verification. More advanced 3D integration is leveraged via imec or project partners. Specialized system test beds have been set up for e.g. burst-mode communication in PONs, quantum key distribution, mm-wave radio-over-fiber for distributed antenna systems, and coherent(-lite) communications. Even a small-scale field trial can be set up in the lab through a dark fiber connecting to another university building.
The IDLab-Design group is internationally recognized, as evidenced by its involvement in 18 Horizon 2020 projects, 16 Horizon Europe projects, two ESA projects and several significant direct collaborations with leading industry partners. The team is also very active in the imec high-speed transceiver and coherent transceiver programs.
