Design challenges in the high volume manufacturing of millimeter-wave transceivers

Millimeter-wave transceivers are the critical component needed for the today's expanding fixed wireless multipoint applications. The design and fabrication, in high volume, of these transceiver units presents many challenges. Procurement of thousands of units demands a very robust, low cost design that can simultaneously meet the system requirements. The digital modulation format of modern communication systems demands better transmitter and receiver performance in the areas of linearity, phase noise, spurious emissions and amplitude flatness. Design parameters such as linearity and spurious responses are second or third order effects that are difficult to predict and control. Production of large quantities of units will result in a wide Gaussian distribution of performance which demands large margins relative to the specifications to maintain high test yields. Individual tuning of each unit would be time consuming and uneconomical. Potential design solutions to these issues are discussed along with the cost tradeoffs inherent in the different designs.