A 13.5-dBm 200–255-GHz 4-Way Power Amplifier and Frequency Source in 130-nm BiCMOS

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Abstract
In this work a wideband power amplifier (PA) and a frequency source (FS) at 240 GHz are presented in 130nm BiCMOS technology with fT/fmax = 300 / 500 GHz. Two circuits are manufactured and measured. Circuit 1 is a three stage PA with a 4-way zero-degree power combiner (ZDC) and two cascaded 1-to-2 active power splitters. It achieves a gain of 15.5 dB across a linear 3-dB bandwidth of 55 GHz, saturated output power (Psat) of 13.5dBm, output 1-dB compression point (OP1dB) of 10.5dBm and a power consumption of 740mW, resulting in a drain efficiency (ηd) of 3% and a power added efficiency (PAE) at OP1dB of 1.47 %. The presented PA achieves 7 times better PAE with 2 times better Psat across a bandwidth that is 1.8 times better than the state-of-the-art. Circuit 2 is a FS consisting of a multiplier-by-8 chain driving the PA (circuit 1). The FS achieves a 3-dB bandwidth of 50 GHz with a total power consumption of 990mW resulting in ηd of 2.3 %, this is 2 times better ηd and 4 times better Psat compared to literature.
Funding Information
  • German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (03ZZ0512A)