Radio Transmitter IC

August 1, 2012

Hittite Microwave Corp. (Chelmsford, MA) has released the HMC6000/6001 silicon transceiver chipset for 60-GHz applications such as WiGig (IEEE 802.11ad) multi-Gbps solutions including wireless cable replacement, wireless docking stations, and wireless sensors. Low-frequency baseband signals are directly translated to and from 60 GHz, minimizing the need for millimeter-wave interconnection components on the printed circuit board. The HMC6000 transmitter IC can translate analog baseband in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) signals to a selected channel in the 60 GHz band, requiring only an external crystal oscillator. It is is fabricated with silicon-germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS semiconductor process technology, and provides differential analog I and Q input ports with DC coupling to enable cancellation of DC offsets and carrier feedthrough.

The HMC6001 receiver IC operates with single-ended input signals from a selected channel in the 60-GHz band and downconverts them to differential analog I and Q baseband signals. The receiver chip includes all necessary frequency generation, gain control, and filtering to support RF signal bandwidths of up to 1.8 GHz. The receiver chip contains programmable baseband filters to set the high-pass corner frequency for removal of residual DC offset and local oscillator (LO) feedthrough signals, and to set the low-pass frequency for lower-bandwidth signals. The HMC6001 exhibits a 6 dB noise figure at the maximum gain setting, and provides a 65-dB gain control range in 1 dB steps.