A Highly-Integrated 64-QAM Ku-Band Transceiver in SiGe BiCMOS for 6G Cell-Free MIMO

We present a highly-integrated transceiver system-on-chip (SoC) intended for Ku-band backhaul applications in the 12-14GHz frequency range. The chip is realized using Infineon’s 0.13μm SiGe BiCMOS technology and encapsulated in a wafer-level eWLB package. The many blocks comprising the circuit achieve competitive performance in measurement, such as an integrated VCO with a phase noise below -110dBc/Hz at a 1MHz offset, a receiver gain of 19dB and a transmitter with an output power of up to 16dBm. The chip also integrates a VGA and I/Q modulators in the TX chain, frequency dividers, LO multiplexers for an external LO feed, LO leakage cancellation circuitry and an SPI interface. The chip operates from a single 3.3V power supply, consuming 1.49W in transmit mode and 0.67W in receive mode, with the capability to support spectrally-efficient modulation schemes up to 64-QAM and data-rates up to 1.2Gb/s with the 16-QAM modulation.