High data-rate communication link at 240 GHz with on-chip antenna-integrated transmitter and receiver modules in SiGe HBT technology

This paper reports on the development and experimental characterization of a high data-rate communication link at 240GHz with highly-integrated direct-conversion quadrature transmitter and receiver modules implemented in 130nm SiGe HBT technology with ft/fmax of 350/550 GHz. Both modules employ a low-cost chip-on-board packaging scheme with single-chip TX and RX front-end circuits accommodating wideband silicon lens-integrated wire ring on-chip antennas. The key highlights of the developed hardware are its high RF and IF operation bandwidths available from the printed-circuit board-level. With the preliminary wireless transmission tests, a 20Gbps and a 24Gbsp transmission speed with an EVM of 24% was demonstrated for BPSK and QPSK modulation schemes at a distance of 90cm with no channel equalization applied. For a 10Gbps BPSK, an error-free communication link could be established.