A highly integrated transceiver microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) manufactured in a 200-GHz SiGe:C production technology is presented, applicable for sensing- and broadband communication applications. To simplify the analog frontend, the fully differential design is based on a homodyne architecture. It comprises an LO signal generation unit based on a wideband 60 GHz fundamental Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO) and an on-chip prescaler, covering the full operational frequency band of 57–64 GHz. Within this bandwidth, the upconverter exhibits an upconversion gain of 23.6–26.4 dB and a maximum output-referred 1-dB compression point of 14 dBm. The downconverter provides a Double Sideband (DSB) noise figure of 9–12 dB with a downconversion gain of 37–71 dB. On chip AC-coupling of the receiver IF-output with a lower −3 dB cut-off frequency as low as 16 kHz eliminates mixer DC-offsets and enables on-chip Intermediate Frequency (IF) amplification. The whole transceiver MMIC draws a current of 415 mA from a single 3.3 V supply and requires few components externally to the chip.

The design of a subharmonic downconverter for 94-GHz imaging arrays in SiGe:C technology is presented. A three-stage differential low-noise amplifier (LNA) with lumped matching networks is used together with a subharmonic mixer driven by a single-pole local-oscillator poly-phase network to form the front-end. The LNA yields 15 dB gain at 94 GHz, while the mixer provides 5 dB conversion gain over a 10 GHz IF bandwidth. The integrated downconverter provides 20 dB conversion gain at 94 GHz with an input 1-dB compression point of −31 dBm and has a current consumption of 45 mA at a 3.3 V supply voltage. The total required die area of the complete downconverter (excluding pad frame) is 0.1 mm, thus making it particularly suitable as a front-end in multi-channel receiver systems.