Area-Efficient SiGe BiCMOS LNA With Wideband Frequency Tuning Capability Across D and G Bands

This paper presents a compact differential low-noise amplifier (LNA) with frequency tuning capability implemented with IHP’s 0.13-<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathrm {\mu }$ </tex-math></inline-formula>m SG13G2 SiGe technology. Area efficiency is achieved with a semi-differential architecture, using compact transformers and avoiding the need of a Marchand balun. The frequency tuning capability is achieved with novel reconfigurable transformers that move the effective position of their center tap through 3 switches. The proposed reconfigurable transformers impose no penalty on the LNA performance, which shows a measured performance comparable to the State Of the Art. It covers at least from 140 GHz to 200 GHz with 5 different frequency operating modes and with a gain higher than 13 dB and a NF of 9.5 dB. Finally, temperature compensation biasing circuits are included to provide gain robustness against temperature, achieving a gain variation of less than 1.5 dB across −20 to <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$80~^{\circ } $ </tex-math></inline-formula>C.