A 60 GHz IQ Transmitter with Psat of 16.6 dBm and Conversion Gain of 36.7 dB in 40 nm CMOS

This paper presents a 60 GHz direct conversion I/Q transmitter front end (TXFE) for 60 GHz-band large-scale phased-array systems. Compact and symmetrical floor-plan for the I/Q signal generator (IQSG) and I/Q modulators are introduced in this paper to relieve issues of IQ mismatch and LO feed-through. The simulated I/Q magnitude ratio and I/Q phase error at 60 GHz are 1 and 0.19°, respectively. The PA utilizes a distributed active transformer-based (DAT) power combiner to provide wide-band load matching and improve power efficiency. According to post-layout simulation results, the proposed PA achieves a saturated output power of 17 dBm and 20% peak power-added efficiency (PAE). The simulated conversion power gain of the TXFE is 36.7 dB with a 3 dB bandwidth of 7 GHz and the OP1dB is 13 dBm. This transmitter consumes 268 mW with a core area of 0.21 mm
²
.