DC - 10GHz RF Digital to Analog Converter

In this work we present recent results on high-speed, multi-Nyquist Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) capable of RF signal generation well above 10GHz. The DAC is implemented Teledyne's InP double heterojunction bipolar transistor (DHBT) with 0.5μm emitter width. The technology offers four level of gold interconnect with BCB dielectric, and thin-film resistor and MIM capacitor are available. Return-to-Zero (RZ) current switches are added to current steering DAC for high frequency wideband applications to achieve higher than 1GHz bandwidth. When clocked at 2.3GHz, the DAC output measures better than 60dB spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) at 1GHz output frequency. With 2.7GHz data clock and 8.1GHz RZ clock, the measured performance is >;50dBc SFDR at 8GHz output frequency. The chip measures 1450 × 2100μm including bonding pads and dissipates 1.6 watt power.