M-QAM Six-Port Modulator Using Only Binary Baseband Data, Electrical or Optical

A new circuit architecture for a direct-carrier six-port modulator is proposed. The proposed architecture uses parallel binary-valued baseband signals to control binary-valued impedance loads for generation of rectangular M-QAM modulation. A theoretical model of the proposed modulator is also derived. A prototype modulator for 64 quadrature amplitude modulation is designed and fabricated for a center frequency of 2.5 GHz for verification of the proposed architecture. The measurements verify the theory and show that good performance can be obtained with the proposed architecture. The proposed modulator does not require any digital-to-analog converter and can operate with both electrical and optical control signals.