A Fully Integrated, Compound Transceiver MIMIC Utilizing Six Antenna Ports for 60 GHz Wireless Applications

A fully integrated transceiver MIMIC (millimeter wave monolithic integrated circuit) with six antenna port functionality for 55 to 65 GHz wireless applications has been developed. The chip has been realized using 100 nm gatelength metamorphic InAlAs / InGaAs HEMT (high electron mobility transistor) technology on GaAs substrates together with CPW (coplanar waveguide) technology. The novel transceiver topology consists of switches, amplifiers, mixers, a voltage controlled oscillator and a frequency divider. The receiver chain shows noise figure < 2.6 dB on the low noise amplifier level and smaller than 7 dB including the antenna switching network. The medium output power amplifier delivers the saturated power level of + 14 dB m. This is the highest integration level for a 60 GHz compound semiconductor transceiver chip reported to-date.