Multi-band 700MHz/ 2.4GHz/ 60GHz RF front-end for radio-over-fiber base stations

A radio-over-fiber RF front end is being developed for multi-band operation covering 700 MHz, 2.4 GHz and 60 GHz. The RF front-end of the system was implemented on FR4 substrate and the optical part of the system was implemented using commercial components. Initially, a 700 MHz system based on 2.4 GHz WLAN was demonstrated and achieved a 6-Mbps data rate transmission over a 4-km optical link and a 2.5-meter wireless link with transmit power of only 1 mW at the base station. Meanwhile, various blocks for the 60 GHz band require further development, and an example of our efforts is a low noise amplifier (LNA) that was designed and developed in CMOS technology, the amplifier achieved noise figure less than 5 dB and a gain of 10 dB over 8 GHz bandwidth covering the frequency range of 50-58 GHz and will be presented here. These developed components are well suited for RF front-ends in radio-over-fiber (RoF) communication systems.