Highly Efficient, Wideband, Frequency-Agile Digital Transmitters

Digital transmitters (DTXs) have rapidly gained momentum as they supplant the functionality of the traditional TXs with RF digital-to-analog converters (RF-DACs). DTXs offer natural compatibility with nanoscale CMOS and occupy a small chip area. They also deliver high output power and demonstrate excellent spectral purity and frequency-agile operation. This workshop describes the strengths, possibilities, and challenges of these DTXs. We will first study next-generation TX requirements and some related techniques that can mitigate these stringent challenges. We will then present some of our recent RF-DAC TX prototypes operating up to 30GHz that can handle more than 300MHz modulation bandwidth.