A CMOS-compatible Schottky-barrier diode detector for 60-GHz amplitude-shift keying (ASK) systems

A square-law detector for 60-GHz amplitude-shift keying (ASK) systems is implemented by using CMOS-compatible Schottky-barrier diodes (SBDs). The SBDs fabricated in the 0.18-mum CMOS technology have the cut-off frequency of 250 GHz. The fabricated detector has minimum conversion loss of 23.7 dB at the input carrier and RF power of -3 dBm, and has 3-dB bandwidth of 3 GHz. Using the fabricated detector, 622-Mb/s data transmission in the 60-GHz ASK system is demonstrated with 60-GHz variable attenuators instead of antennas. The bit error rate of 10^-10 is achieved at the calculated propagation distance of 1.3 meter, and 10^-6 at 2.5 meters, assuming the Tx and Rx antenna gain of 24 dBi.