Low-Power CMOS Transceiver Circuits for 60GHz Band
Millimeter-wave Impulse Radio
Ahmet Oncu† and Minoru Fujishima†‡
† ‡
School of Frontier Sciences and School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo
7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8658, Japan
ahmet-oncu@rfic.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp and fuji@ee.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Abstract - In this paper we present an 8Gbps CMOS
amplitude-shift-keying (ASK) modulator in the transmitter and a
19.2mW 2Gbps CMOS pulse receiver circuits for high-speed and
low-power 60GHz millimeter-wave impulse radio. High-speed
ASK modulation is obtained without using DC power by turning
on and off of the shunt connected short channel NMOSFET
switches. The isolation is maximized using quarter-wavelength
on-chip transmission lines. The isolation data-rate product of this
work is 3.7 times higher than recently reported millimeter-wave
ASK modulators. The proposed 60GHz pulse receiver circuit
requires low-power for high-speed data since it detects the
envelope of the received pulses using a nonlinear detecting
amplifier and only limiting amplifier process the high-speed data.
This receiver requires the lowest DC power among recently
reported millimeter-wave receivers.
I Introduction
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issues of IEEE Transactions and simulate, as closely as
possible. Demand for greater than 1Gbps wireless multimedia
communication is increasing. The 60GHz millimeter-wave
band is promising for realizing short-range high-speed
wireless communication applications, where low-cost and
low-power are required. Recently, millimeter-wave
transceiver building blocks in CMOS have been reported
[1]-[7], however they suffer from high-power consumption.
In particular, a millimeter-wave CMOS impulse radio, as
shown in Fig. 1, is promising for low-cost and low-power
wireless communication, in which a digital switch controls a
millimeter-wave CMOS amplitude-shift-keying (ASK)
modulator in the transmitter. The receiver receives 60GHz
pulses and converts them to a digital signal.
To study the millimeter-wave impulse radio, we designed
and fabricated an 8Gbps 60GHz ASK modulator and 19.2mW
2Gbps pulse receiver circuits using 1-Poly 6-Metal 90nm
CMOS. The micrographs of the ASK modulator and the
receiver are shown in Fig. 2(a) and Fig 2(b) respectively.
II. Millimeter-wave CMOS Impulse Radio Circuits
A. 60GHz ASK Modulator Design in CMOS
A 60GHz CMOS ASK modulator is designed with three
NMOSFET switches and two quarter-wavelength transmission
lines as shown in Fig. 3. The speed of the proposed ASK
modulator is determined by the time duration for turning on
and off of the NMOSFET switches, where DC power is not
required. 200Ω gate resistors are inserted to ensure operation
with sufficient stability at high-speed. When the digital input
is 1V, the switches are turned on. The transmission line with a
quarter-wavelength transforms the low impedance of the
switch to high impedance and reflection is maximized. In this
case, the leaked power to the output is minimized and high
isolation is achieved
B. 60GHz Pulse Receiver Design
Greater than 1Gbps communication at 60GHz will have
low-power consumption when a received signal is detected
without using a high-frequency local oscillator and high-speed
data is processed using only a limiting amplifier (LA), as
shown in Fig. 4(a). A 60GHz-band CMOS pulse receiver used
for investigating the above concept is shown in Fig. 4(b). Here,
a low-noise amplifier (LNA) is not implemented in this work
to determine the inherent features of the receiver. As a result,
the receiver consists of a nonlinear amplifier (NLA), a
five-stage LA, an offset canceller and an output buffer.
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III. Experimental Result
Chips are measured on wafer. The maximum data date and
isolation of the modulator are measured to be 8Gbps and
26.6dB, respectively. The input and output wave forms of the
pulse receiver for pseudo-random data is shown in Fig. 5. The
measured maximum data-rate and sensitivity of the receiver
are 2Gbps and the average power of -20dBm for
millimeter-wave pulses of 60GHz, respectively. Digital codes
are provided at the output with 19.2mW of the total power
consumption using the proposed pulse receiver. Note that
6.26mW is used for driving the off-chip load and only
12.94mW is used for envelope detection and signal
processing.
The maximum data-rates as a function of the isolation of
the millimeter-wave ASK modulators are shown in Fig.6. The
product of the maximum data rate and the isolation of this
modulator is measured to be 170GHz, which is the highest
value. The receiver is compared with recently reported
millimeter-wave receivers in Table 1. It consumes lowest
power among millimeter-wave receivers.
V. Summary and Conclusions
A 60GHz 8Gbps ASK modulator and a 19.2mW 2Gbps
pulse receiver circuits were successfully fabricated using
1-Poly 6-Metal 90nm CMOS process. The performances of
the fabricated chips indicate that a greater than 1Gbps wireless [3] Parsa and Razavi, ISSCC, pp.190-191, 2008.
communication can be obtained low-power at a 60GHz [4] Scheir, et al., ISSCC, pp.184-185, 2008.
millimeter-wave band using a standard CMOS process. The [5] Razavi, ISSCC, pp. 188-189, 2007.
proposed millimeter-wave CMOS impulse radio will open up [6] Mitomoto, et al., VLSI Circuits, pp. 172-173, 2007.
[7] H. Y. Chang, et al. , IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components
new applications for short-range high-speed wireless Letters, vol. 17, no. 9, pp. 691-693, Sept. 2007.
communication with low-cost and low-power. [8] H. Mizutani, et al., IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and
Techniques, vol. 48, no. 5, pp. 840-845, May, 2000.
Acknowledgments [9] K. Ohata, et al.,European Microwave Conf., pp.1-4,2000.
[10] K. Ohata, et al., NEC Journal of Advanced Technology, vol.2,
The chip was fabricated by the chip fabrication program of no.3, 2005.
the VLSI Design and Education Center (VDEC), the [11] T. Kosugi, et al., IEEE MTT-S Int., 2003, vol. 1, pp. 129–132.
University of Tokyo. [12] T. Kosugi, et al., IEEE Comp. Semicond. Integr. Circuit Symp.,
References pp. 171–174, 2004.
[1] D. Chowdury, et al., ISSCC, pp. 560-56, 2008.
[2] Bagher Afshar, et al., ISSCC, pp. 182-183, 2008.
TX RX …1 1 0 1 ANT This work …1101
CMOS
ANT ANT …1101 Millimeter-wave LNA Detector LA digital
pulses (high-speed circuitry
60GHz 60GHz CMOS
ASK …1101 pulse digital
digital data)
modulator receiver circuitry (a)
Osc. Greater than 1Gbps mm-Wave
(Greater than 60GHz pulses (Greater than pulse CMOS
…1101

1Gbps 1Gbps digital data) DC-offset

digital data) canceller
CMOS
CMOS
digital VIN VM
circuitry Data
Buffer output
CMOS

Fig. 1. Block diagram of a millimeter-wave CMOS impulse radio. DUM NLA Limiting Amplifier VP
(detector)
565μm (b)
G OUT G Fig. 4. (a) Architecture of the proposed low-power 60GHz
DC-offset pulse receiver and (b) diagram of receiver block in this work to
core canceller realize the proposed pulse receiver.
core size= 0.61mmx0.3mm
chip size= 0.8mmx0.48mm

VIN VM 0110101 001011010 100101101 01001011010 1001

M3 2Gbps
Buffer

Binary data
725μm

LA

Data DUM NLA VP 60GHz

input pulse
M2 DC-offset
(VIN)
canceller
Negative
output (VM)
M1
VDD VSS
2ns
G IN G
100μm Fig. 5. Receiver input and output waveforms for 2Gbps
(a) (b) pseudo-random data.
Fig. 2. Micrograph of the fabricated (a) 8Gbps 60GHz ASK
TABLE 1
modulator and (b) 19.2mW 2Gbps CMOS 60GHz pulse 10
Maximum data rate [Gbps]

[12,11] This Work, 60GHz Comparison of the 60GHz

receiver chips. 120GHz Isolation×Data Rate=170GHz
receivers
Missing
Building
[10], 60GHz
DC Power Blocks
Vin IN l=λ/4 l=λ/4 OUT V This
out [9], 60GHz
1 work 19.2mW LNA
[8],60GHz
10

Vg1 Vg2 Vg3 50Ω

0G

M1 M2 M3 load [2] 24mW PLL, DMOD

H
45

z
G
10

Rg Rg Rg ● Compound
z
G

[3] 36mW DMOD

Hz

60GHz semiconductor
CW ▲ CMOS [7], 46GHz [4] 65mW DMOD
0.1
CMOS
10 30
20 40 50 60 [5] 80mW DMOD
Isolation [dB]
DATA Fig. 6. Maximum data rates as a [6] 144mW DMOD
Fig. 3. Circuit schematic of the ASK modulator for 60GHz function of isolation of the ASK
millimeter-wave CMOS impulse radio. modulators.