A D-band multiplier-based OOK transceiver with supplementary transistor modeling in 65-nm bulk CMOS technology

A D-band on-off keying (OOK) transceiver chipset is fabricated in a 65-nm bulk CMOS technology as a low-cost and highly integrative solution to short-distance wireless connectivity. Supplementary transistor modeling is performed for accurate circuit design at mm-wave frequencies. To overcome low transistor f _max and reduce dc power consumption, the transmitter employs a frequency-multiplier-based architecture with no power amplifier. The receiver adopts a non-coherent architecture consisting of a dc-coupled three-stage differential amplifier and an envelope detector. The OOK transmitter exhibits a measured output power of -9.8 dBm and an on-off level difference of 13.2 dB at 134.1 GHz. The receiver shows a measured average responsivity of 4.1 kV/W and a noise equivalent power of 211.4 pW/Hz ^1/2 over all D-band frequencies. The dc power consumption of the transmitter and the receiver is 76 and 32.5 mW, respectively. The transceiver is tested in both on-chip loopback and air-channel configurations and demonstrates data transmission up to 10 and 2 Gb/s at a distance of 0.03 m, respectively.