Ceit, San-Sebastian, Spain, Technological Campus, Electrical, Electronic and Control Engineering Department, Tecnun (University of Navarra), San-Sebastian, Spain, Sivers IMA, Kista, Sweden, Saab Technologies AB, Järfälla, Sweden, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Queens University, Kingston, ON, Canada, CEA-Leti, Grenoble, France, Université Grenoble-Alpes, Grenoble, France

This paper presents the design of a wideband and high-linearity E-band transmitter integrated in a 55-nm SiGe BiCMOS technology. It consists of a double-balanced bipolar ring mixer which upconverts a 16-21-GHz IF signal to the 71-76- and 81-86-GHz bands by the use of a 55/65-GHz local oscillator signal, followed by a broadband power amplifier which employs 2-way output power combining using an integrated low-loss balun transformer. The transmitter exhibits an average conversion gain of 24 dB and 22 dB at the 71-76- and 81-86-GHz bands, respectively, with an output 1-dB compression point greater than 14 and 11.5 dBm at each band. A maximum output power of 16.8 dBm is measured at 71 GHz. The dc power consumption is 575 mW. The presented transmitter is used to demonstrate the transmission of a 10.12-Gb/s 64 quadrature amplitude modulated signal with a spectral efficiency of 5.06 bit/s/Hz, which makes it suitable for use in future high-capacity backhaul and fronthaul point-to-point links. © 2017 IEEE.

64 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), BiCMOS, E-band, integrated circuits (ICs), millimeter waves, mixer, power amplifier (PA), SiGe, wireless communications

Power amplifiers, Semiconducting silicon, Silicon alloys, Transmitters, 1dB compression point, Amplitude modulated signals, Broadband power amplifier, DC power consumption, Local oscillator signals, Maximum output power, SiGe BiCMOS technology, Spectral efficiencies, Broadband amplifiers