This article takes a look at a new leap in ultra-high-speed wireless communication, courtesy of engineers at the University of California, Irvine. For the first time, a wireless transceiver has hit the data rates of fiber-optic links—120 gigabits per second (Gbps).
By rethinking how they generate and process signals, the researchers managed to get around stubborn power and manufacturability hurdles. That opens up a real shot at short-range wireless systems that actually perform like optical fiber.
Breaking the Wireless–Fiber Speed Barrier
For years, wireless engineers have been chasing the dream of hitting fiber-optic speeds without the hassle of cables. The UC Irvine team finally got there by working at about 140 gigahertz (GHz), deep in the F-band—a frequency range with loads of bandwidth and, let’s be honest, some pretty intimidating technical headaches.
At 120 Gbps, this transceiver really does bring “fiber-class” performance to wireless. What’s especially cool is that it’s not just a lab demo—it runs on practical power and uses a manufacturable semiconductor process.
Why 140 GHz Matters
The F-band sits way above what today’s commercial millimeter-wave systems use. People are already talking about it in early 6G standardization circles.
Its main draw? There’s a ton of underused spectrum up there, which means you can have really wide channels and, as a result, crazy-fast data rates.
Eliminating the Power-Hungry DAC Bottleneck
The heart of this breakthrough is how the transmitter makes high-speed signals. Normally, you’d need digital-to-analog converters (DACs), but those eat up way too much power at these speeds.
High-speed DACs can easily burn through several watts, so scaling up just doesn’t work. The UC Irvine engineers sidestepped this by building the signal right in the radio-frequency domain.
RF-Domain 64QAM Architecture
The transmitter uses three synchronized subtransmitters to put together a 64-quadrature amplitude modulation (64QAM) signal, all in the RF domain. This approach nails the needed modulation quality and sips just about 230 milliwatts—honestly, that’s way less than DAC-based setups.
Hierarchical Analog Demodulation on the Receiver
Power efficiency was a big focus for the receiver, too. Just like transmitters struggle with power-hungry DACs, receivers run into trouble with analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) at these wild data rates.
The team came up with a new hierarchical analog demodulation strategy to tackle this.
Processing Before Digitization
Instead of digitizing the incoming signal right away, the receiver gradually breaks it down in the analog domain. Only after this staged demodulation does the signal get digitized, which takes a huge load off the ADC.
The end result? The receiver also runs at about 230 milliwatts, so both sides of the transceiver stay efficient.
Manufacturability and Real-World Deployment
It’s also worth talking about how they built this thing. Rather than chasing the latest semiconductor tech, they made the whole system with a 22-nanometer fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) process.
This move makes the chip way easier and cheaper to manufacture compared to designs that need 2 nm or 18A technologies.
Where This Technology Will Be Used First
Because signals at these high frequencies don’t travel far, early uses will probably stick to short-range jobs like:
Path to Commercialization and Standards
The project kicked off in 2020, led by Professor Payam Heydari. Zisong Wang focused on the transmitter, while Youssef Hassan worked on the receiver.
Support came from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Microelectronics Commons program. The team’s findings landed in the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, which says a lot about their technical chops.
Now, regulators like the FCC and international 6G standards groups are taking a serious look at F-band spectrum allocations. If they give the green light, we might see commercial systems built on this tech within the next decade.
It could totally reshape our expectations for wireless connectivity at blazing-fast data rates. Who knows—maybe the way we connect will never be quite the same.
Here is the source article for this story: Wireless Transceiver Hits 120 Gbps, Rivaling Fiber Optics