A Hybrid CMOS Photonic RF Channelizer: System Design and Analysis

Wireless perception requires processing of broadband spectrum by Artificial Intelligence (AI) pipelines. However, direct sampling of other electronics-only solutions is unsuitable for simultaneous processing of low-RF to FR3 band (24 GHz). We propose combining CMOS electronic circuits with silicon-based photonic integrated circuits (PICs) to enable novel broadband RF photonic channelizers. This work presents a system-level design and analysis of a channelizer using on-PIC optical filter banks and optical-domain demodulation.