A 0.4 THz Efficient OOK/FSK Wireless Transmitter Enabling 3 Gbps at 20 meters

This article presents a THz transmitter for enabling energy-efficient multi-Gbps medium-range communication links. The design supports on-off keying (OOK) and frequency shift keying (FSK) modulations at a carrier frequency of 390 GHz, and is fabricated in 90 nm SiGe BiCMOS GlobalFoundries process. The transmitter achieves up to 3-Gbps data rate over 20m point-to-point link using 4-inch collimating parabolic mirrors. No bit errors were detected in transmitting 2 M bits at a data rate of 3 Gbps (BER < 0.5 × 10
^-6
). The transmitter chip consumes 70-mW DC power and has an effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) of 13 dBm.