Recently, a through-wall radar SoC chip was jointly developed by the team of Professor Zhang Hui and Associate Professor Wu Lianbo from the School of Integrated Circuit Science and Engineering, Beihang University, in collaboration with Tianmushan Laboratory and Researcher Ye Xiuzhu's team from Beijing Institute of Technology.

The paper on the related findings has been accepted by the 2026 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC). This marks Beihang's first paper published in ISSCC as the first completing institution. Known as the "Chip Olympics," ISSCC is a globally recognized top-tier academic conference in the field of integrated circuit design, with annually accepted papers representing the cutting-edge progress of global chip technology.

The paper, titled "A 1.6-to-3.8GHz Reconfigurable FMCW Radar SoC with 81.5% Relative-Bandwidth PLL for Real-Time Life Detection in Disaster Response", notes that the chip features a wideband adaptive tunability from 1.6GHz to 3.8GHz and is equipped with a high-bandwidth phase-locked loop (PLL). It enables multi-target motion trajectory tracking and respiratory detection through various obstacles. This technology makes its debut appearance at ISSCC, and is expected to play a crucial role in post-disaster rescue, medical monitoring, anti-terrorism operations, and other fields, providing a high-precision, real-time chip-level solution for life detection in complex environments. The paper is scheduled for presentation in Session 34 and will be demonstrated in the Demo Session.

Beihang University is the first completing institution of the paper. Professor Zhang Hui and Associate Professor Wu Lianbo's team undertook the entire process of chip design, tape-out, and testing. Fu Renjie (2022 PhD student) and Shi Linxu (Combined Master's and Ph.D.student) are the co-first authors, while Zhang Hui and Wu Lianbo serve as the corresponding authors. Additionally, Professor Zhao Weisheng's team, Associate Professor Fang Xiao, and more than ten students jointly participated in the research and implementation of this project, demonstrating Beihang's capability in industry-university-research collaborative innovation in the field of integrated circuits.

Professor Zhang Hui, the team leader, is a national-level leading talent. She previously worked for Broadcom Corporation, a global leader in semiconductors, holding positions such as Principal Engineer and R&D Manager, with 13 years of R&D experience in wireless chips including Bluetooth, WiFi, and ultra-wideband (UWB). The chips she developed have been applied in world-renowned products of Apple, Huawei, Tesla, etc., with a cumulative shipment of billions of units. Joining Beihang in 2021, Professor Zhang focuses on integrated circuit design methodology research. Currently, her team's main research fields include radio frequency (RF) and mixed-signal circuits, as well as integrated sensing and communication SoCs.

Editor: Liu Tingting