ISSCC 2007 / SESSION 10 / mm - WAVE TRANSCEIVERS AND BUILDING BLOCKS / 10 . 7 10 . 7 Low - Power mm - Wave Components up to 104 GHz in 90 nm

Interest in the utilization of the mm-wave band has recently spurred extensive research in the exploration of SiGe and CMOS technologies for high-data-rate short-range communication. Building blocks and complete transceivers have been demonstrated in the 60-to-77GHz range [1, 2]. With the continued scaling of nanoscale CMOS technology and the resulting increase in intrinsic device ft, there are new opportunities for circuits operating above 100GHz. New potential applications include mm-wave imaging and sub-THz chemical detectors, which have applications in astronomy, chemistry, physics, medicine, and security. In this paper, the operating limits of a digital 90nm CMOS process at both device and circuit levels are explored.