Transmitter and receiver front-ends for millimeter-wave link operating at 60 GHz range

The paper presents concept, design and a solution for integration of the millimeter-wave transmitter and receiver front-ends operating in the frequency range from 50 GHz to 75 GHz. In the case of transmitter, modulated signal at the intermediate frequency (IF) of about 15 GHz is brought to the up-converter and then to the output amplifier operating in the range (50–75) GHz. Local oscillator signal for the up-converter is generated by multiplying the signal from the synthesizer by four. From the output amplifier the signal is led to the microstrip structure and finally to the microstrip-waveguide transition. Concerning the receiver, signal from the antenna is brought to its front-end input through waveguide-microstrip transition. After mixing with the local oscillator signal, the IF signal around 15 GHz is being generated. A new method of integration is proposed where connections between active as well as passive components of all circuits are accomplished by direct connecting chip pads, without using transitions to microstrip structure between them. Projected level of the input signal (around 15 GHz) is between +3 dBm and +10 dBm and the output power at the WR-15 waveguide output is 15 dBm in the (50–75) GHz range. Projected noise figure of the receiver front-end with a bandwidth of 1 GHz is better than 5 dB in the range (50–75) GHz while total gain without the IF amplifier is around 12 dB.