60 GHz Front-end Components for Broadband Wireless Communication in 130 nm CMOS Technology

The over 5 GHz available spectral space allocated worldwide around the 60 GHz band, is very promising for very high data rate wireless local communications. In this article we present two front-end key components for a 60 GHz transceiver in 130 nm RF CMOS technology: a single balanced mixer with high Conversion Gain (CG), reduced Noise Figure (NF) and low power consumption, and an LC cross coupled Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO) with very good linearity, considering V ctrl , and very low Phase Noise (PN). In both circuits, are employed custom designed inductors and a balun structure for mixer in order to enhance their performance. The VCO’s inductor achieves an inductance of 198 pH and a quality factor (Q) of 30, at 30 GHz. The balun shows less than 1 o phase imbalance (PI) and less than 0.2 dB Amplitude Imbalance (AI) from 57 to 66 GHz. The mixer shows a CG greater than 15 dB and a NF lower than 12 dB. In addition, the VCO achieves a PN lower than -106 dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset, and shows great linearity for the entire band. Both circuits are biased with a 1.2 V supply voltage and the total power consumption is about 10.6 mW for the mixer and 10.92 mW for the VCO.