Design and Implementation of 280-GHz Non-Coherent ASK TX–RX Chipsets in 16-nm FinFET CMOS

This article presents the design and implementation details of a 280-GHz transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) pair for J-band communication. Amplitude-shift-keying (ASK) modulation is used to reduce TX and RX complexity, while exploiting the higher available bandwidth (BW) at J-band range (252–325 GHz). The TX and RX are designed for non-coherent operation, removing the requirement of a synchronized local oscillator (LO) signal for demodulation. Both TX and RX, as well as the breakout version of the TX signal chain, are characterized standalone on a probe station. The TX signal chain achieves an average of −3.2-dBm output power at a 263-GHz center with a phase noise of −90 dBc/Hz at 10-MHz offset. The TX achieves an output power of −18 dBm at 270-GHz center, with a 3-dB BW of 45 GHz. The RX demonstrates a conversion gain of 31 dB with a baseband (BB) BW of 0–25 GHz. Modulated measurements are performed for the RX, up to 20-Gbaud NRZ at a 280-GHz carrier, limited by the test setup.