A 24-GHz Transmitter With On-Chip Dipole Antenna in 0.13- $\mu$ m CMOS

A fully integrated dual-conversion transmitter chain with an on-chip dipole antenna and an integer-N synthesizer operating in the 24-GHz Instrument, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band was fabricated in 0.13-mum CMOS. The choice of 24-GHz operation enables the integration of a 4-mm long antenna on chip. The transmitter chain can support data rate of 100 Mb/s. It provides 6-dBm output power to a 100-Omega load at 22.4 GHz with 152-mW power dissipation including that of a frequency synthesizer. At this output power level, the dual conversion architecture can mitigate the VCO pulling even when an antenna and a power amplifier are integrated on the same substrate as the VCO. The out-of-band emissions due to the modulation side lobes and image have been sufficiently suppressed. The stray emissions of local oscillator can also be reduced using circuit techniques. The signal from the transmitter has been picked up 95 meters away with a horn antenna, which suggests that wireless communications between a single chip radio and a base station 100 meters away is possible.