Design and Implementation of a D-Band I/Q Modulator in a 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS Technology

In this paper a D-Band direct conversion quadrature I/Q Modulator, integrated in a 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS process, is presented. The proposed design is based on double-balanced Gilbert-cell mixer and it is able to perform efficient up-conversion of wideband baseband signals, supporting gigabit communication in the D-Band. The modulator is broadband, in terms of the LO frequency range, maintaining a conversion gain higher than 5dB for various LO tones between 130-160 GHz. The circuit achieves a LO-to-RF isolation of 41 dB and an image rejection of 40 dB when it is driven with 0 dBm LO power. The power consumption of the proposed modulator is lower than 90 mW.