A 95-160 GHz Broadband Power Amplifier with 15-dBm P_sat in 130nm SiGe BiCMOS

In this paper, a 95-160 GHz two-way power-combining power amplifier (PA) is presented. Each path consists of a three-stage differential cascode core with gm-boosting technique to provide high output power and flat gain simultaneously over a broadband. Marchand balun and anti-pair metal-oxide-metal (MOM) capacitors with high Q-factor are introduced for ultra-wideband and low insertion loss impedance matching. Fabricated in a 130 nm silicon-germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS technology featuring f<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">T</inf>/f<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">max</inf> of 250/300 GHz, the PA exhibits a measured consistent small signal gain of around 18 dB, with a 3-dB bandwidth of 60 GHz centered at 130 GHz. The PA demonstrates measured peak saturated output power (P<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">sat</inf>) of 15 dBm at 108 GHz and 146 GHz, with a 3-dB bandwidth of 65 GHz from 95 GHz to 160 GHz. Considering of P<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">sat</inf> and bandwidth, the proposed PA shows a competitive performance in silicon-based process with f<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">max</inf> lower than 300 GHz at D-band. The amplifier consumes 210 mA from a 3.3 V supply.