A 60-Gbps 108-GHz 16-QAM Dielectric Waveguide Interconnect with Package Integrated Filters

This paper presents a 108 GHz superheterodyne transceiver system in Intel 16 FinFET, assembled on an organic substrate with package-integrated RF filter and launcher and paired with PTFE rectangular dielectric waveguides. The RF bandwidth of the transceiver is greater than 15 GHz and allows 16 QAM signaling up to 4 meters link distances. Off-chip 2x2 matrix equalization equalizes channel and circuit impairments. The paper reports up to 60 Gb/s data transfers with measured EVMs ranging from -19.4 dB to -17.0 dB at a total power consumption of 636 mW. The system achieves the highest reported data rate for waveguide links at a distance greater than 1 m to date. A low tap and bit count equalizer paired with sharp 10dB/GHz roll-off analog and RF filtering overcome ISI due to >300ps dispersion of the dielectric waveguide channel.