A 0.36pJ/bit, 17Gbps OOK receiver in 45-nm CMOS for inter and intra-chip wireless interconnects

Abstract

Wireless interconnects are capable of establishing energy-efficient intra and inter-chip data communications. This paper introduces a circuit level design of an energy-efficient millimeter-wave (mm-wave) non-coherent on-off keying (OOK) receiver suitable for such wireless interconnects in 45-nm CMOS process. The receiver consists of a simple two-stage common source structure based Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) and a source degenerated differential Envelope Detector (ED) followed by a Base Band (BB) amplifier stage. Operating at 60GHz, the proposed OOK receiver consumes only 6.1mW DC power from a 1V supply while providing a data rate of 17Gbps and a bit-energy efficiency of 0.36 pJ/bit.