A CMOS 228-324GHz RF Domain Quadrature Receiver with a Broadband Harmonic-Enhanced LO Generator

The abundant spectrum resource and short wavelength of THz electromagnetic waves make these bands attractive for B5G and 6G wireless communications. In 2017, the frequency band from 252 to 322GHz (called “300-GHz-band” hereafter) was allocated for high-speed point-to-point (P2P) links in the standard IEEE std. 802.15.3d [1]. A broadband THz receiver is essential in such applications to fully utilize the rich spectrum of THz bands. However, it is challenging to design a broadband THz receiver operating beyond the <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$f_{\max}$</tex> of CMOS processes because transistors can not provide any power gain, and passive components are lossy in these bands. Previous works have made numerous efforts to demonstrate 300-GHz-band CMOS receivers [2]–[9], but a broadband CMOS receiver covering the whole IEEE std. 802.15.3d band has yet to be reported so far. One solution to these challenges is proposed in this work; namely, a 228-324GHz RF domain quadrature receiver utilizing a broadband LO generator with a 4.27dBm peak output power in a 65nm bulk CMOS technology with an f<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">mapt</inf> of 250GHz.