Multi-band 700MHz/ 2.4GHz/ 60GHz RF front-end for radio-over-fiber base stations

A radio-over-fiber RF front end is being developed for multi-band operation covering 700 MHz, 2.4 GHz and 60 GHz. The RF front-end of the system was implemented on FR4 substrate and the optical part of the system was implemented using commercial components. Initially, a 700 MHz system based on 2.4GHz WLAN was demonstrated and achieved a 6-Mbps data rate transmission over a 4-km optical link and a 2.5-meter wireless link with transmit power of only 1mW at the base station. Meanwhile, various blocks for the 60 GHz band require further development, and an example of our efforts is a low noise amplifier (LNA) that was designed and developed in CMOS technology, the amplifier achieved noise figure less than 5 dB and a gain of 10 dB over 8 GHz bandwidth covering the frequency range of 50–58GHz and will be presented here. These developed components are well suited for RF front-ends in radio-over-fiber (RoF) communication systems.