60GHz transmitter front-end in 40nm LP-CMOS with improved back-off efficiency

Author

Khalaf, Kinda ; Vidojkovic, V. ; Vaesen, Kristof ; Parvais, B. ; Long, John R. ; Wambacq, Piet

Author_Institution

Imec, Leuven, Belgium

fYear

2013

fDate

21-23 Jan. 2013

Firstpage

6

Lastpage

8

Abstract

A three-stage, transformer-coupled class-AB power amplifier (PA) and a super source-follower-based I-Q upconversion mixer are implemented in 40nm LP-CMOS technology. The transmitter (Tx) front-end is designed for multi-Gbps QPSK/QAM-16 signal transmission at 60GHz with improved back-off efficiency. It achieves 5.7% power-added efficiency (PAE) at 5dB back-off with a total power consumption of only 90mW. Power gain and output 1dB compression point (P_-1dB) are 22dB and 10.2dBm respectively. A second Tx front-end, based on a class-A PA and Gilbert-cell upconversion mixer, is designed as a benchmark for comparison. With a similar value of P_-1dB, PAE of the class-AB prototype at 5dB back-off is three times higher and the total power consumption is 100mW lower than the benchmark Tx.

Keywords

CMOS analogue integrated circuits; field effect MIMIC; millimetre wave mixers; millimetre wave power amplifiers; quadrature amplitude modulation; quadrature phase shift keying; radio transmitters; Gilbert-cell upconversion mixer; I-Q upconversion mixer; LP-CMOS technology; back-off efficiency; efficiency 5.7 percent; frequency 60 GHz; gain 22 dB; multiGbps QPSK-QAM-16 signal transmission; power 90 mW; power consumption; size 40 nm; super source-follower; three-stage class-AB power amplifier; transformer-coupled class-AB power amplifier; transmitter front-end; Benchmark testing; CMOS integrated circuits; Gain; Mixers; Power demand; Prototypes; Transmitters; CMOS; Millimeter wave integrated circuits; mixers; power amplifiers transmitters;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Silicon Monolithic Integrated Circuits in RF Systems (SiRF), 2013 IEEE 13th Topical Meeting on

Conference_Location

Austin, TX

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-1552-4

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4673-1551-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SiRF.2013.6489414

Filename

6489414