A 12.8GS/s Sub-Sampling ADC Front-End With 38GHz Input Bandwidth and >39dB SNDR for 1 to 32GHz in 22nm FDSOI

The demand for higher data rates combined with the crowded wireless spectrum results in a trend towards millimeter-wave frequencies. RF-sampling architectures offer advantages in terms of flexibility, simplicity and robustness. However, presenting the ADC directly with tens of GHz at the input poses significant challenges especially to the front-end, leading to a demand for high-bandwidth-and fidelity implementations. This work targets RF-sampling of X-band to Ka-band frequencies while maximizing signal purity and a Nyquist bandwidth of 6.4GHz to allow flexibility and multi-channel reception, but minimizing system complexity and data-rate overhead. The focus is on the lower Ka-band around 27 to 31GHz used for high-throughput Earth-to-Satellite communication applications.