A Highly Integrated 60 GHz 6-Channel Transceiver With Antenna in Package for Smart Sensing and Short-Range Communications

• Published in: IEEE journal of solid-state circuits Vol. 51; no. 9; pp. 2066 - 2076
• Main Authors: Nasr, Ismail, Jungmaier, Reinhard, Baheti, Ashutosh, Noppeney, Dennis, Bal, Jagjit S., Wojnowski, Maciej, Karagozler, Emre, Raja, Hakim, Lien, Jaime, Poupyrev, Ivan, Trotta, Saverio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-09-2016; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: 60 GHz; antenna-in-package; Bandwidth; gesture sensing; Mixers; mm-wave; Phase noise; radar; Receivers; Receivers & amplifiers; Sensors; Transmitters; Voltage-controlled oscillators
• ISSN: 0018-9200; 1558-173X
• DOI: 10.1109/JSSC.2016.2585621

This work presents a highly integrated 57-64 GHz 4-channel receiver 2-channel transmitter chip targeting short range sensing and large bandwidth communications. The chip is housed in an embedded wafer level ball grid array package. The package includes 6 integrated patch antennas realized with a metal redistribution layer. The receiver patch antennas have a combined antenna gain of ≈10 dBi while each transmitter antenna has a gain of ≈6 dBi. The chip features a wide tuning range integrated VCO with a measured phase noise lower than -80 dBc/Hz at 100 kHz offset. Each of the differential transmitter channels shows a measured output power of 2-5 dBm over the complete frequency range. In addition, one transmitter channel features a modulator that can be digitally programmed to operate in either radar or communication mode. Each of the receiver channels has a measured conversion gain of 19 dB, a single-side-band noise figure of less than 10 dB and an input referred 1 dB compression point of less than 10 dBm. With all channels turned on the chip consumes a current of 300 mA from a 3.3 V supply. The functionality of the chip is demonstrated for both sensing and short range wireless communications.