Abstract

This paper presents a 300–320 GHz sliding-IF I/Q receiver front-end in 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology with ft/fmax of 300 GHz/450 GHz. The architecture, unlike direct conversion receiver at sub-THz/THz frequency range, removes the need of LO frequency same as carrier frequency. Consequently, power consumption of the LO chain is significantly reduced. Signal amplification is performed at IF stage. LO frequency at two-third and one-third of carrier frequency is generated, from external 50 GHz LO signal, using on-chip frequency doublers for RF and I/Q mixers, respectively. The receiver provides 15.2 dB of conversion gain at 310 GHz. The 3-dB RF and BB bandwidths are measured to be 26 GHz and 8 GHz, respectively. Input referred compression point (ICP) and SSB noise figure of the receiver are measured to be -17 dBm and 29.5 dB, respectively. RF and LO chain of the receiver consume 296 mW and 110 mW, respectively.