Energy Efficiency Tradeoffs for Sub-THz Multi-User MIMO Base Station Receivers

TL;DR

This paper compares energy and spectral efficiency of different sub-THz MU-MIMO base station receiver architectures, highlighting digital arrays as the most efficient option under certain conditions.

Contribution

It provides a detailed power analysis and performance comparison of three sub-THz array architectures for MU-MIMO base stations, based on circuit review and simulations.

Findings

Digital arrays achieve highest spectral efficiency.

High power consumption of active phase shifters limits other architectures.

Digital arrays are optimal when SNR and spectral efficiency are high.

Abstract

Sub-terahertz (sub-THz) antenna array architectures significantly impact power usage and communications capacity in multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems. In this work, we compare the energy efficiency and spectral efficiency of three MU-MIMO capable array architectures for base station receivers. We provide a sub-THz circuits power analysis, based on our review of state-of-the-art D-band and G-band components, and compare communications capabilities through wideband simulations. Our analysis reveals that digital arrays can provide the highest spectral efficiency and energy efficiency, due to the high power consumption of sub-THz active phase shifters or when SNR and system spectral efficiency requirements are high.