A full D-band CMOS envelope detector for high-speed OOK wireless communication

Abstract

This article presents a D-band CMOS envelope detector (ED) used for a wideband on-off-keying (OOK) receiver. The ED consists of an input balun and a differential common-source pair. The input balun is designed in a low-loss rat-race coupler. The baseband output signal is taken at the common node of the differential pair while the carrier is simultaneously suppressed. The ED is fabricated in a low-cost 65-nm bulk CMOS technology. The measured average responsivity and noise equivalent power are 1.16 kV/W and 234 pW/Hz(1/2), respectively, from 110 to 170 GHz. To demonstrate its high-speed demodulation capability, the ED is employed as an OOK receiver along with an on-chip D-band amplifier. The receiver demodulates the OOK signal of up to 4 Gbps through the air channel over a distance of 0.11 m. Furthermore, an air-channel transfer of high-definition video signal complying with the SMPTE 292M standard is successfully demonstrated using the receiver.