A 48 Gbps Communication Link Over D-Band Polymer Microwave Fiber

A D-band transmitter and receiver are packaged from bare die MMICs that were designed and fabricated in a 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The packaged modules are interfaced to a WR-6.5 waveguide at the RF and coaxial connectors at the LO and IF ports. Both transmitter and receiver cover an RF frequency range of around 120-150 GHz while the required LO frequency is 1/4 of the RF frequency. A D-band communication link built with the packaged transmitter and receiver demonstrated up to 48 Gbps 16-QAM over 1-meter polymer microwave fiber (PMF), 40 Gbps 16-QAM over 2 meters PMF, and 16 Gbps QPSK over 4 meters PMF.