60GHz ASK LTCC SoP transmitter design

A highly integrated 60GHz-band ASK transmitter, the so-called system-on-package (SoP) module, which employs a multi-layer structure has been developed and fabricated. This small size, high performance and lightweight transmitter module is intended for used in V-band wireless applications such as high-speed multimedia data communication. The transmitter was designed based on a direct conversion architecture with ASK modulation scheme. This design technique offers a few advantages such as a simple architecture, low cost and feasible to transmit data at a speed of over 1 Gb/s. For low-attenuation characteristics and resonance suppression of the SoP, the coplanar double wire-bond transition, CPW-to-stripline transition, e-Microstripline, as well as planar and vertical via transitions has been applied. In this work, the transmitter system-on-package (SoP) has been monolithically implemented with a six-layer LTCC block integrating a power amplifier, modulator and two frequency multipliers on the block. The fabricated transmitter SoP with size of 13.82mm × 6.55mm achieves an output of 13dBm at a RF frequency of 58.78 GHz.