A 0.24pJ/bit, 16Gbps OOK Transmitter Circuit in 45-nm CMOS for Inter and Intra-Chip Wireless Interconnects

Research in recent years has demonstrated that intra and inter-chip wireless interconnects are capable of establishing energy-efficient data communications within as well as between multiple chips. This paper presents a circuit level design of an energy-efficient millimeter wave (mm-wave) on-off keying (OOK) transmitter suitable for such wireless interconnects in 45-nm CMOS process. The transmitter consists of an NMOS cross-coupled VCO, an OOK modulator and a power amplifier. The transmitter is able to achieve maximum modulation data rate of 16Gb/s at 60GHz with the output power of -3dBm consuming a total power of 3.9mW, which translates to a bit-energy efficiency of 0.24pJ/bit.