This year’s PI Innovation Award 2025 at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) goes to a pioneering development for tomorrow’s mobile communications: Dr. Georg Gramlich, researcher at the KIT Institute for High Frequency Technology and Electronics, was honored for his work on printed high-frequency interconnects which are considered a key technology for developing future 6G networks. The Innovation Award of the Karlsruhe-based company Physik Instrumente (PI), the market and technology leader in high-precision positioning technology and piezo applications, is endowed with 2,500 euros and is being presented at the KIT for the first time this year.
The awarded innovation solves a key problem: Until now, there has been no cost-effective, high-performance connection technology for the high frequencies (253–322 GHz) intended for 6G between different electronic components. The award winner developed a novel method that enables the flexible and precise establishment of low-loss interconnects. This method made it possible for the first time to achieve hybrid integration of a power amplifier and a leaky wave antenna operating in the intended frequency band in the laboratory.
Success Beyond the Laboratory
The technology is currently undergoing further development in a transfer project with an industrial partner from the mobile communications industry. “This confirms the development’s high potential, as it meets our criteria for the PI Innovation Award: social relevance and practical applicability,” says Dr. Steffen Schreiber, Director Global Innovation & Scouting at PI, explaining the decision to award the prize to the winner.
„Georg Gramlich’s research is an excellent example of interdisciplinary, visionary engineering work. His printed high-frequency interconnects allow for entirely new approaches to developing sub-terahertz systems, which is directly relevant to social and economic progress in the fields of digital infrastructure and industrial automation,” emphasizes Professor Dr.-Ing. Thomas Zwick, director of the KIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology (IHE). “It is also a great honor for our institute to have this work recognized with the PI Innovation Award.”
The awarded innovation solves a key problem: Until now, there has been no cost-effective, high-performance connection technology for the high frequencies (253–322 GHz) intended for 6G between different electronic components. The award winner developed a novel method that enables the flexible and precise establishment of low-loss interconnects. This method made it possible for the first time to achieve hybrid integration of a power amplifier and a leaky wave antenna operating in the intended frequency band in the laboratory.
Success Beyond the Laboratory
The technology is currently undergoing further development in a transfer project with an industrial partner from the mobile communications industry. “This confirms the development’s high potential, as it meets our criteria for the PI Innovation Award: social relevance and practical applicability,” says Dr. Steffen Schreiber, Director Global Innovation & Scouting at PI, explaining the decision to award the prize to the winner.
„Georg Gramlich’s research is an excellent example of interdisciplinary, visionary engineering work. His printed high-frequency interconnects allow for entirely new approaches to developing sub-terahertz systems, which is directly relevant to social and economic progress in the fields of digital infrastructure and industrial automation,” emphasizes Professor Dr.-Ing. Thomas Zwick, director of the KIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology (IHE). “It is also a great honor for our institute to have this work recognized with the PI Innovation Award.”
