A K-/Ka-Band mmWave Radio-Over-Fiber Transceiver Front-End With Co-Designed SiGe EIC and SiPh PIC for Intrasatellite Links

Abstract

To meet the demand for low cost, size, weight, and power (C-SWAP) signal routing in the growing satellite and space markets, we propose and demonstrate an all-silicon fully integrated mmWave radio-over-fiber (RoF) transceiver front-end for frequency bands in the range of 18–36 GHz. The opto-electronic front-end consists of a radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) with both transmit and receive paths manufactured in a radiation-tolerant SiGe process, connected to the optical components contained on silicon photonic (SiPh) photonic integrated circuits (PICs). The RX uses a Ge PD, followed by a resonant photoreceiver and a resonant driver on the RFIC. The TX uses a resonant predriver and resonant driver on the RFIC, and an SiPh traveling-wave Mach–Zehnder modulator (TW-MZM) on the PIC. The RX and TX on the RFIC exhibit a total DC power consumption of 212 and 230 mW, respectively. The full-RoF-link is characterized through vector network analyzer (VNA) measurements, and its performance is verified through time-domain experiments at different carrier frequencies, resulting in 1-GBd 128-QAM with 5.2% EVM and 5-GBd 64-QAM with 9.1% EVM on a 22-GHz carrier, and 10-GBd 16-QAM/32-QAM with 11.2% EVM on a 28-GHz carrier.