High power SiGe E-band transmitter for broadband communication

Fully integrated transmitter at E-band frequencies in a superhetrodyne architecture covering the 71-76GHz was designed and fabricated in 0.12μm SiGe technology. The transmitter's front-end includes a power amplifier, image-reject driver, tunable RF attenuator, power detector and IF-to-RF up-converting mixer. A variable gain IF amplifier, quadrature baseband-to-IF modulator, frequency synthesizer and x4 frequency multiplier (quadrupler) are also integrated on-chip. It achieves output power at P1dB of 17.5 to 18.5 dBm, saturated power of 20.5 to 21.5 dBm, up to 39 dB Gain with an analog controlled dynamic range of 30 dB and consumes 1.75 W.