60 GHz Concurrent Dual-Polarization RX Front-End in SiGe with Antenna-IC Co-Integration

Achieving a wideband, efficient, scalable and low-cost interface between IC and antennas is critical for mm-wave transceivers in silicon. This paper presents an antenna-IC co-integration approach to achieve dual-polarization transmission and reception using on-chip dual-pol feeds that aperture-couple through a slot in the on-chip ground to a patch antenna on the back side of the IC. The proposed wafer-scale compatible approach is demonstrated with a 60GHz prototype that includes a dual-pol 60 GHz receiver frontend (RXFE) implemented in the TowerJazz SBC18H3 SiGe technology. The RXFE includes a cross-pol cancellation path (with variable gain and phase shift) to cancel cross-polarization leakage signal to enable concurrent dual-pol operation. The antenna co-integration approach achieves similar to 50% and 2.7 dBi simulated efficiency and gain, with measured dual-pol reception and similar to 30 dB cross-pol leakage cancellation. Extensive ground-plane reuse leads to the 60GHz dual-pol RXFE and antenna feed and slot structures occupying 1.8mm similar to 1.8mm of die area.