D-Band Common-Base Amplifiers with Gain Boosting and Interstage Self-Matching in 0.18- μm SiGe HBT Technology

Junho Ko, Dongkyo Kim, Sanggeun Jeon

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper presents two D-band amplifiers fabricated in a 0.18- μm SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor process. A single-ended amplifier employs a five-stage common-base topology, and a differential amplifier combines two of the single-ended chains. To overcome the limited available gain of the given technology at D-band, a gain-boosting technique based on positive feedback is adopted for each gain cell. In addition, the input and output impedances of the gain cell are conjugate-matched by adjusting the positive feedback; thus, no external components are needed for interstage matching. This improves the gain and bandwidth while minimizing the chip size. The single-ended amplifier exhibits a measured gain of 7.5 dB at 123 GHz with a 3-dB bandwidth of 25 GHz. The differential amplifier shows a measured gain of 20.3 dB at 115 GHz with a 3-dB bandwidth of 13 GHz. The output power values of the two amplifiers are 2.6 and 6.7 dBm, respectively. The chip sizes are small at 0.22 and 0.40 mm2, respectively.

Original languageEnglish
Article number7464287
Pages (from-to)254-258
Number of pages5
JournalIEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs
Volume64
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017 Mar

Keywords

  • D-band amplifiers
  • SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT)
  • gain boosting
  • interstage matching
  • positive feedback

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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