Jeremie Prades

0.3–42.5 GHz wideband common emitter amplifier driver unit in 55 nm SiGe BiCMOS for 60 Gb/s silicon photonic Mach-Zehnder Modulator

A silicon integrated wideband common emitter amplifier driver unit in 55 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology designed for a 60 Gb/s silicon photonic segmented Mach-Zehnder Modulator (SE-MZM) is reported in this paper. It achieves a bandwidth of 42.2 GHz (0.3-42.5 GHz), allowing the transmission of an On-Off Keying (OOK) modulated optical signal on a single optical channel with a data rate of up to 60 Gb/s. For a power consumption of 125 mW, it provides a small signal gain of 18 dB and a single-ended peak-to-peak output voltage swing of up to 1.1 V on a 50 Ω output load. The die active area is as small as 204 × 137 μm2.

Broadband Sounding Rocket Antenna for Dual-Band Telemetric and Payload Data Transmission

This letter presents and investigates a broadband sounding rocket antenna developed for dual-band data transmission of telemetric and payload systems. This single-element antenna permits the use of both the well-established 869.4-869.65 MHz and 2.4-2.4835 GHz frequency bands available in Europe to implement a redundant transmission of telemetric and tracking data desired for reliability. Furthermore, the available spectrum in the upper band offers a high-speed wireless link for transmitting payload data. To preserve the mechanical integrity and aerodynamics of rocket, the antenna is integrated in its nose cone. The proposed low-cost and low-weight structure is based on printed circuit board (PCB) pieces assembled in a LEGO-like manner to form a broadband three-dimensional (3-D) biconical antenna, which is fed by a diplexer integrated in its base. A prototype has been fabricated and validated using a reduced-length fuselage in a near-field measurement system.