A fully integrated 60 GHz transmitter front-end in SiGe BiCMOS technology

A fully integrated transmitter (TX) front-end for wireless communication at 60 GHz, produced in 0.25 μm SiGe:C BiCMOS technology is presented. The transmitter features a modified heterodyne topology with a sliding intermediate frequency (IF). The TX features IF I/Q mixers, an IF amplifier, a 60 GHz mixer, a phase-locked loop, an image-rejection filter and a power amplifier. The measured 1-dB compression point at the output is 12.6 dBm and the saturated power is 16.2 dBm. Error-free data transmission with a 16QAM OFDM signal and data rate of 3.6 Gbit/s (without coding 4.8 Gbit/s) over 15 m was demonstrated. This is the best reported result regarding both the data rate and transmission distance in SiGe without beamforming.