High frequency system on chip transceiver

1. A system-on-chip (SOC) transceiver configured to operate in excess of 100 GHz, the transceiver comprising:

a quadrature oscillator configured to generate a fundamental frequency and a second harmonic frequency and comprising at least a pair of high frequency outputs at said second harmonic frequency, wherein at least the second harmonic frequency exceeds 100 GHz;

a transmission output coupled to one of the high frequency outputs for transmitting an output signal at said second harmonic frequency;

a transmission signal transformer coupled to the other one of the high frequency outputs, the transmission signal transformer configured to generate a differential oscillator signal at the second harmonic frequency;

a radio frequency input for receiving radio frequency signals at the transceiver from an antenna;

a radio frequency signal transformer coupled to the radio frequency input, the radio frequency transformer configured to generate a differential radio frequency signal at the radio frequency;

a mixer configured to compare the differential radio frequency signal with the differential oscillator signal and output the comparison as an intermediate frequency signal.

2. The transceiver of claim 1 , further comprising at least one amplifier configured to amplify one or more of the signals in the transceiver.

3. The transceiver of claim 2 wherein the at least one amplifier includes at least one of:

a radio frequency amplifier configured to amplify the radio frequency signal before it is input to the radio frequency signal transformer;

a local oscillator amplifier configured to amplify the high frequency output before it is input to the transmission signal transformer; or

an output amplifier configured to amplify the high frequency output before it is transmitted by the receiver.

4. The transceiver of claim 3 , wherein each amplifier comprises a five-stage amplifier, an input matching circuit and an output matching circuit.

5. The transceiver of claim 4 , wherein a first three of the five stages comprise cascode-configured transistors to improve gain and a last two of the five stages comprise a common-emitter transistor configuration to provide high power output.

6. The transceiver of claim 5 , wherein the last of the five stages includes a pair of transistors coupled in parallel.

7. The transceiver of claim 1 , wherein the quadrature oscillator is a Colpitts topology comprising four quarter-circuits coupled via corresponding tank inductors in a star configuration, each quarter circuit further including a pair of cascode-coupled transistors configured to sufficiently isolate output signals of the quadrature oscillator from the tank inductors; a second harmonic circuit configured to generate second harmonics signals from the fundamental frequency and a biasing network configured to tune the oscillator.

8. The transceiver of claim 1 , wherein the intermediate frequency signal is a differential signal.

9. A transceiver array comprising a plurality of transceivers as defined in claim 1 , each of the transceivers configured to operate at a transmitting frequency when in transmission mode and at a receiving frequency when in receiving mode.

10. The transceiver array of claim 9 , wherein each transceiver is further configured to filter the intermediate frequency signal at a frequency that is the difference between the transmitting frequency and the receiving frequency.

11. The transceiver array of claim 10 , wherein the filtered intermediate frequency signal is enhanced for retrieving data carried on the signal.