A Low-Noise Amplifier in 130-nm InP HBT with 15.5 dB Gain and Record 5.3 dB Noise-Figure at 212 GHz

We present a low-noise amplifier (LNA) in Teledyne $130-\mathrm{nm}$ InP technology, featuring peak 15.6 dB gain and better than 8 dB input return loss over $\mathrm{1 7 0 - 2 5 0 ~ G H z}$. The designed LNA employs a cascade of five common-emitter stages and adopts a design procedure based on the minimum noise measure. The LNA achieves $\mathrm{5. 7 5} \pm \mathrm{0. 4 5} \mathrm{d B}$ noise-figure (NF) in the measurement frequency range of $\mathrm{1 8 0 - 2 1 6 ~ G H z}$. It consumes $0.25 \mathrm{~mm}^{2}$ die area, including the DC bias pads, and dissipates 7.6 mW of DC power. To the authors’ knowledge, this work demonstrates record NF results at 200 GHz and above for LNAs designed in any bipolar technology.