A subharmonic chipset for gigabit communication around 240 GHz

In this paper, we present monolithic integrated I-Q receive and transmit MMICs for wireless data transmission in the frequency range around 240 GHz. The chipset features an RF bandwidth of more than 80 GHz which corresponds to an IF bandwidth of more than 40 GHz. This enables the direct up and down-conversion of broadband IF signals like on-off keyed modulations. The receiver, as well as the transmitter, are employing subharmonically pumped resistive mixers and RF small-signal pre and post amplifiers, respectively. The MMICs are fabricated in our in-house metamorphic high electron mobility transistor (mHEMT) technology with a gate length of 50 and 35 nm.