220-to-320-GHz Fundamental Mixer in 60-nm InP HEMT Technology Achieving 120/152/168-Gbps Data Transmission in Three Bands

A 300-GHz-band fundamental mixer was designed and fabricated in indium phosphide (InP) high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) technology for 6G wireless communications. To achieve a wide bandwidth, we proposed a resistive mixer with a widely split frequency matching network. The fabricated mixer IC achieved a conversion gain of -15 dB, a -3-dB RF bandwidth of 60 GHz (235-295 GHz), and a -6-dB RF bandwidth of 100 GHz (220-320 GHz), the widest ever reported. We implemented the mixer IC as a WR3.4 waveguide mixer module and used a single mixer module in the TX and in the RX in a back-to-back data transmission experiment in three different frequency bands in the range from 220 GHz to 320 GHz. Data rates of 120, 152 and 168 Gbps were achieved in the three frequency bands, with 168 Gbps being the highest data rate achieved so far by a single mixer.