22-Gb/s 60-GHz OOK Demodulator in 0.13-µm SiGe BiCMOS for Ultra-High-Speed Wireless Communication

This paper presents a 60-GHz on-off keying (OOK) demodulator suited for high-speed applications. A highly efficient envelope detector (ED) and a novel limiting amplifier (LA) architecture with high bandwidth and high gain are used to ensure high-speed low-power operation. To avoid degrading the demodulator performances and simultaneously not affect the stability, a feedforward dc-offset cancellation technique is implemented in the LA. Integrated in a 0.13-µm SiGe BiCMOS technology, the demodulator occupies an active footprint of only 0.035 mm2 and consumes 11 mW. The OOK demodulator achieves a data-rate (DR) of 22 Gb/s at a bit-error rate (BER) of less than 10-12, which is – to the authors’ best knowledge – the highest reported DR (for 60-GHz OOK demodulators). This corresponds to an energy efficiency of only 0.5 pJ/bit. At 22 Gb/s, the input sensitivity is -17.4 dBm.