300-GHz CMOS QPSK transmitter for 30-Gbps dielectric waveguide communication

A 300-GHz 30-Gbps QPSK transmitter is demonstrated in 65-nm CMOS. The transmitter consists of an on-chip multi-mode modulator, an injection locked quadrature oscillator, a 40-GHz bandwidth power amplifier with constant gain and group delay, a 4X frequency multiplier chain to generate a 165-GHz LO signal for a double balanced up-conversion mixer that generates the output at 300 GHz. The transmitter without equalization consumes 180mW with an energy efficiency of 6 pJ/bit.