A CMOS 135–150 GHz 0.4 dBm EIRP transmitter with 5.1dB P1dB extension using IF envelope feed-forward gain compensation

A CMOS D-band 135–150 GHz transmitter is presented with integrated digital control and on-chip antenna. The proposed transmitter employs an IF feed-forward compensation scheme which improves the soft gain compression of the power amplifier by 5.1dB to provide an overall more linear AM-AM profile allowing reduced power back-off for modulation schemes with a high peak-to-average ratio. The proposed D-band transmitter consumes 255mW and occupies 2000 × 1500 um of silicon area. The proposed transmitter delivers a 0.4 dBm EIRP and a saturated power on chip of 13.2 dBm. The transmitter has a peak PAE of 8.2% with power delivered to the antenna and a peak PAE of 0.4% when considering radiated power.