A 5.9 mW E-/W-Band SiGe-HBT LNA With 48 GHz 3-dB Bandwidth and 4.5-dB Noise Figure

• Published in: IEEE microwave and wireless components letters Vol. 32; no. 12; pp. 1451 - 1454
• Main Authors: Vardarli, Eren, Sakalas, Paulius, Schroter, Michael
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.12.2022
• Subjects: 3-dB bandwidth; E-band; Frequency measurement; Gain measurement; Heterojunction bipolar transistors; Impedance matching; low noise amplifier (LNA); low-voltage operation; millimeter-wave (mm-wave) circuit design; noise figure (NF); Noise measurement; silicon-germanium (SiGe)-heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT); Transmission line measurements; W-band; Wideband
• ISSN: 1531-1309; 1558-1764
• DOI: 10.1109/LMWC.2022.3192488

The theory, design, and implementation of a millimeter-wave (mm-wave) two-stage common-emitter (CE) low noise amplifier (LNA) using a 130-nm silicon-germanium (SiGe):C Bipolar CMOS technology is presented. The LNA was optimized for wideband performance from 62 to 110 GHz for both mm-wave radar/sensing and wireless communication applications. A two-stage broadband noise and impedance matching technique is used to obtain a relativity flat gain (13.5 dB) and noise figure (NF) (4.5 dB) across the E-/W-band. Low-voltage <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">(V_{\text {CC}}=0.7\,\,\text {V}) </tex-math></inline-formula> and low-power (5.9 mW) operation is achieved by forward biasing the base-collector junction, while the wideband capability is further improved by a T-type input matching network utilizing constant quality factor curves. To the best of authors' knowledge, the presented LNA has the widest 3-dB bandwidth with the lowest power consumption in the literature for silicon-based E-/W-band LNAs.