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 language | English |
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Article number | 7464287 |
Pages (from-to) | 254-258 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs |
Volume | 64 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 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