A 120-Gb/s 100–145-GHz 16-QAM Dual-Band Dielectric Waveguide Interconnect With Package Integrated Diplexers in Intel 16

This letter presents a dual-band superheterodyne transceiver system in Intel 16 operating at 109 and 135 GHz center frequencies with a measured rejection >60 dB within the 11 GHz guard band. The transceiver is flip-chip assembled on a multilayer organic package, which integrates hairpin resonator diplexers and electromagnetic waveguide launchers. A connector assembled on the organic package feeds a 3–4-m long PTFE dielectric waveguide ensuring a stable mechanical connection. This letter demonstrates up to 120 Gb/s data rates with measured error vector magnitudes (EVMs) between −19.2 dB and −16.2 dB at 3–4-m distances with combined power consumption of 1116 mW. This is the first work in the literature reporting beyond 60 Gb/s over dielectric waveguide channels at link distances greater than 1 m. Combining frequency division multiplexing with a low tap count FFE equalizer and sharp on-die analog and RF filtering with a low loss on package diplexer enabled the >100 Gb/s at multimeter distances.