Long-range wireless link with fiber-equivalent data rate

Recent advances in both high power millimeter wave (mmW) Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology and high-speed System on Chip (SoC) modem technology has enabled the development, fabrication, and field testing of a high speed, long range wireless datalink with fiber equivalent speed. The link exhibited nearly an 80 Gbps bi-directional data rate (40 Gbps in each direction) over a range of 16km. This was accomplished by using a combination of frequency and polarization multiplexing to combine a total of eight ∼10 Gbps modem channels on the lower (71–76 GHz) and upper (81–86 GHz) E-band channels. Each modem channel was separately up-converted and amplified with a Gallium Nitride (GaN) power amplifier. Frequency multiplexing was accomplished at E-band (post-amplification) to maintain high Power Added Efficiency (PAE) in the power amplifiers.