A 16-QAM 100-Gb/s 1-M Wireless Link With an EVM of 17% at 230 GHz in an SiGe Technology

• Published in: IEEE microwave and wireless components letters Vol. 29; no. 4; pp. 297 - 299
• Main Authors: Rodriguez-Vazquez, Pedro, Grzyb, Janusz, Heinemann, Bernd, Pfeiffer, Ullrich R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.04.2019
• Subjects: Frequency modulation; Harmonic analysis; High-speed communications; Mixers; Noise measurement; Radio frequency; terahertz and sub-mm-wave systems; ultra wideband communication; Wireless communication
• ISSN: 1531-1309; 1558-1764
• DOI: 10.1109/LMWC.2019.2899487

This letter presents a 1-m wireless link established with a set of fundamentally operated Tx/Rx direct-conversion in-phase and quadrature (IQ) radio frequency (RF) front-end modules in a 0.13-μm SiGe HBT technology featuring full chipon-board packaging. Using a 16-quadrature amplitude modulation, data rates from 20 to 100 Gb/s with an error vector magnitude from 7% to 17% were achieved at a 1-m distance. Thanks to the new mixer-first Rx, the maximum data rate improved from 90 to 100 Gb/s compared with our previous work using the amplifier-first Rx. The peak performance was reached at 230 GHz. The Tx operates at a 3.5 dB backoff from Psat showing a 3-dB RF bandwidth (BW) of 28 GHz, a Pout of 5 dBm, and an IQ imbalance below 0.7 dB. The Rx features a peak conversion gain of 8 dB, a single-sideband noise figure of 14 dB, a 3-dB RF BW of 26 GHz, and an IQ imbalance below 1 dB. This letter also provides an analysis of the RF front-end imperfections related to the large link BW.