An 8-psec 13dBm peak EIRP digital-to-impulse radiator with an on-chip slot bow-tie antenna in silicon

In this paper, a direct digital-to-impulse transmitter is implemented that radiates impulses with EIRP of 13dBm and a record pulse-width of shorter than 8psec. It is shown that the starting time of the radiated impulses can be locked to the edge of the input trigger with a high timing accuracy. It is demonstrated that two widely spaced chips can generate coherent impulses in space with timing jitter of better than 270fsec. It is also shown that the frequency stability of the radiated impulses is better than 10Hz at 220GHz. The chip is fabricated in a 130nm SiGe BiCMOS process.