Dual-Band 802.11ax Transceiver Design With 1024-QAM and 160-MHz CBW Support

A 2W2 802.11ax transceiver design is presented to support dual band simultaneous operation (DBS) and 1024-QAM modulation. The proposed architecture features linearity enhancement for uplink OFDMA and wideband transmission. With integrated low phase noise clock generation and PLL, bestin-class receiving sensitivity and lowest transmission EVM floor are demonstrated through measurements. With 20MHz (HE20) receiving, -96.5dBm/-66dBm sensitivity level is measured for MSC0/11, respectively. The output power reaches 18dBm with -35dB EVM for 80MHz 1024-QAM (HE80 MCS11) transmission at 5GHz band. Narrowband OFDMA signals can be transmitted at full power capacity, and 160MHz channel bandwidth (CBW) can also be supported without digital predistortion (DPD). The fully integrated transceiver occupies 10.5 mm2 silicon area in 22nm CMOS.