A 135 GHz 32 Gb/s Direct-Digital Modulation 16-QAM Transmitter in 28 nm CMOS

Carl D’heer, Patrick Reynaert

2022ESSCIRC 2022- IEEE 48th European Solid State Circuits Conference (ESSCIRC)16 citationsDOI

Abstract

This paper presents a 135 GHz direct-digital modulation 16-QAM transmitter employing a Cartesian architecture with separate phase and amplitude modulation. The transmitter, implemented in 28 nm CMOS, demonstrates a peak output power of 0 dBm. A maximum data rate of 32 Gb/ <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$s$</tex> is achieved using 16-QAM without any equalization or pulse shaping. Star-QAM and QPSK modulations lead to data rates of 27 Gb/ <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$s$</tex> and 24 Gb/ <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$s$</tex> , respectively. The transmitter consumes 130 mW of DC power.

Topics & Concepts

TransmitterQuadrature amplitude modulationPhase-shift keyingCMOSQAMModulation (music)Electronic engineeringComputer scienceElectrical engineeringTelecommunicationsPhysicsEngineeringBit error rateChannel (broadcasting)AcousticsSemiconductor materials and devicesAdvancements in PLL and VCO TechnologiesRadio Frequency Integrated Circuit Design