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 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.