Quintic mixer: A subharmonic up-conversion mixer for THz transmitter supporting complex digital modulation

To realize a terahertz (THz) transmitter that supports complex digital modulation with a CMOS process having a sub-THz fmax, an unconventional triple-conversion transmitter architecture is introduced. Its first mixer is a quadrature modulator. The second mixer generates a second IF signal with two “sidebands” (up-converted signal and its image). The third mixer is the frequency quintupler-based, LO-less “quintic mixer” with an amplitude-distortion compensation filter. It up-converts the second IF signal to RF with high linearity using the two sidebands. No LO signal needs to be supplied, which simplifies the design of THz transmitter. A proof-of-concept experiment of the quantic mixer is demonstrated using a CMOS test chip with an on-chip IF receiver. A 16-QAM signal centered around 159 GHz is successfully generated from a modulated second IF signal at 31 GHz.