Imec, in collaboration with Panasonic, has developed a
prototype of a 60 GHz radio transceiver allowing to reach data rates of 7 Gbps
over short distances at very low power consumption. The chip achieves this
performance over the four channels specified by the IEEE802.11ad standard.
Imec’s low-power 60 GHz solution is an important step towards adoption of 60 GHz
technology in low-cost battery-operated consumer products such as smartphones
and tablets.
Today’s wireless consumer electronic products increasingly
include data-intensive applications, while applications below 10 GHz such as
WLAN face spectrum scarcity. This drives wireless system designers to explore
higher frequency bands such as the unlicensed band around 60 GHz. This band is
available throughout the world and enables multi-Gbps wireless communication
over short distances. However, to enable 60 GHz radio solutions for portable
mass-market products, cost, area, and power consumption need to drastically
decrease. Imec’s ultra-low power CMOS-based solution is an important step to
solve these challenges.
Imec’s transceiver front-end prototype IC (integrated
circuit) achieves an EVM (error vector management) better than -17 dB for QAM16
modulation in the four channels specified by the IEEE802.11ad standard, reaching
data rates of 7 Gbps over short distances. The IC is implemented in 40 nm LP
(low-power) digital CMOS targeting low-cost volume production. The TX
(transmitter) signal path, consisting of a power amplifier (PA) and a mixer,
consumes only 90 mW with 10.2 dBm OP1dB. The RX (receiver) signal path,
consisting of a low noise amplifier (LNA) and a mixer, consumes only 35 mW with
a noise frequency (NF) of 5.5 dB and 30 dB gain. ESD (electrostatic discharge)
robustness is more than 4 kV HBM (human body model). The compact core area of
only 0.7 mm2 makes this transceiver front-end solution particularly
suitable for use in phased arrays. The area is kept low thanks to the use of
lumped components even at 60 GHz, and very compact mm-wave CMOS layout
techniques. Continuous research done at imec on power efficient CMOS PAs
enables further important reductions in the power consumption of the
transmitter section. The front-end is now further being integrated into a
beamforming transceiver prototype.
Imec, www2.imec.be/
