Chapter 10 - 60 GHz all silicon radio IC: How it all started

Abstract

Demand for high data rate in the order of multi-Gb/s for short-range wireless links application has grown rapidly in the last decade. Especially utilizing the 7-GHz unlicensed bandwidth around the 60-GHz spectrum. Significant amount of research has gone in both academia and industry to realize this vision of low-cost ICs operating around 60GHz. This would have been unthinkable twenty years ago, but thanks to the pace of innovation in this field, we are closer to this realization than ever. This chapter will discuss the early efforts that lead to the very first prototypes of CMOS-based 60GHz RFICs. Detailed design examples and performances of various types of 60-GHz CMOS power amplifier, the most critical block in a transmitter front-end, are discussed. Complete mm-Wave integration is targeted for the 60-GHz transmitter front-end aiming toward more flexible and robust heterodyne architecture in terms of overall gain, output power, and total power consumption. The single-chip radio transceiver developed in 2008 achieves an overall gain of 20dB, while delivering 11dBm saturated output power at 63GHz with less than 200mW total power consumption in the transmitter chain. These performances present excellent design trade-offs, for a 60-GHz single-chip transmitter in 90-nm CMOS radio transceiver, in terms of overall gain, output power, and total power consumption. The measured results of one of the very first 60-GHz single-chip transceiver with integrated transmitter front-end along with IF and baseband circuitry are also discussed. Uncompressed high-definition video streaming using the developed single-chip 60-GHz radio transceiver IC is demonstrated.