Single-Chip 220-GHz Active Heterodyne Receiver and Transmitter MMICs With On-Chip Integrated Antenna

This paper presents the design and characterization of single-chip 220-GHz heterodyne receiver (RX) and transmitter (TX) monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) with integrated antennas fabricated in 0.1- μm GaAs metamorphic high electron-mobility transistor technology. The MMIC receiver consists of a modified square-slot antenna, a three-stage low-noise amplifier, and a sub-harmonically pumped resistive mixer with on-chip local oscillator frequency multiplication chain. The transmitter chip is the dual of the receiver chip by inverting the direction of the RF amplifier. The chips are mounted on 5-mm silicon lenses in order to interface the antenna to the free space and are packaged into two separate modules.