A 94 GHz CMOS based oscillator transmitter with an on-chip meandered dipole antenna

A miniaturized 94 GHz oscillator transmitter in 65nm CMOS is presented. An extremely small silicon foot-print of 0.25mm² is achieved through meandering of the top-metal dipole antenna, conjugate matching between the oscillator and the antenna without impedance matching elements and efficient placement of the oscillator circuit within the antenna. The antenna demonstrates bandwidth of 90 to 99 GHz (10%) and a gain of -6dBi. The use of parasitic aware antenna-circuit code-sign strategy results in an accurate measured oscillation frequency of 94.1 GHz. The oscillator exhibits a measured output power of -25 dBm, phase noise of -88 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset and consumes 8.4mW from a 1V supply.