High-frequency fiber-wireless signal conversion is an essential technology for 5G/6G millimeter-wave (mmWave) indoor communication. It overcomes the problem that millimeter-wave indoor transmission is blocked by walls. In this research work, we demonstrated an integrated mmWave radio-over-fiber antenna module comprising silicon photonic chips, CMOS RF chipsphased array antennas. This antenna module is advantageous in small size, low power consumption,is potential for mass production, which can be massively deployed inside a building to form a millimeter-wave local area network.

Unlike the existing radio-over-fiber antennas that are implemented by packaging discrete microwaveoptoelectronic components, the integrated mmWave-over-fiber antenna developed in our project is to employ silicon photonics technology for monolithic integration of passive integrated opticshigh-frequency optoelectronic components on a single chip, which is able to perform multi-channel sophisticated optical signal processing. This chip can be further packaged with millimeter-wave RF chips as well as encapsulated antennas on a single printed circuit board to form mmWave-over-fiber antenna in package, which can greatly reduce the volume of module.

The integrated mmWave radio-over-fiber antenna module developed in this project is small in size with low power consumptionhas the potential for mass production. It can be massively deployed inside a building to form an mmWave-over-fiber centralized RAN. The main applications include Gigabyte wireless Ethernet, high-speed vehicle wireless sensinglow-latency communications, cable-free TVprojection devices for transmission of uncompressed high-definition multimedia, wireless digital storage devices such as solid-state driveshigh-definition quality camerasinteractive wireless AR/VR used by multiple people, etc.