A 80-92-GHz Receiver Front-End Using Slow-Wave Transmission Lines in 65nm CMOS

Slow-wave coplanar waveguides (SW-CPW) are promising candidates for realization of low-loss and compact on-chip passive components at millimeter-wave (MMW) frequencies. To meet the stringent pattern density requirement of nanoscale CMOS, two types of dummy prefills are proposed. The transmission lines achieve a measured effective dielectric permittivity of 20 and 10, an attenuation of 1 and 0.5 dB/mm, a quality factor of 15 and 20 and a figure-of-merit of 0.2 dB/rad, all at 40 GHz. A W-band front-end receiver based entirely on the characterized SW-CPW with frequency tripler as the LO is measured. The receiver achieves a total gain of 35-dB, a NF of 9-dB, a P-1dB of -40-dBm, a low power consumption of 108mW under 1.2/0.8V and a FOM of 0.49.