A 70-100GHz Direct-Conversion Transmitter and Receiver Phased Array Chipset Demonstrating 10Gb/s Wireless Link

A transmitter and receiver phased array chipset is demonstrated in the range between 70 and 100GHz using a 0.18&μm SiGe BiCMOS process with fT / fMAX of 240/270GHz. Each chip comprises four phased array elements with distributed calibration memory and calibrated direct up- and downconversion mixer chain. Each receive channel has a conversion gain of 33 dB and noise figure of 7dB from 75-95GHz. Each transmit channel has a flat saturated output power of > 5dBm between 70 and 100GHz. Both transmitter and receiver arrays operate from 1.5V and 2.5V power supplies and consume 1W each. Using a die-on-PCB prototype with integrated antennas, a wireless link operating at 10Gb/s (using 16-QAM) or 8.75Gb/s (using 32-QAM) is demonstrated at a distance of 1-meter with a carrier frequency of 88GHz.