An 83-GHz High-Gain SiGe BiCMOS Power Amplifier Using Transmission-Line Current-Combining Technique

• Published in: IEEE transactions on microwave theory and techniques Vol. 61; no. 4; pp. 1557 - 1569
• Main Authors: Chen, Austin Ying-Kuang, Baeyens, Y., Young-Kai Chen, Jenshan Lin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.04.2013; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Amplifiers; Applied sciences; Automotive radar; Circuit properties; current combining; Devices; E -band; Electric, optical and optoelectronic circuits; Electronic circuits; Electronic equipment and fabrication. Passive components, printed wiring boards, connectics; Electronics; Exact sciences and technology; Failure; Gain; Impedance matching; Microwave circuits, microwave integrated circuits, microwave transmission lines, submillimeter wave circuits; millimeter wave; Millimeter wave technology; Networks; Noise levels; Performance evaluation; point-to-point link; power amplifier (PA); Power amplifiers; power combining; Power gain; Power generation; Redundancy; Silicon germanides; Silicon germanium; silicon-germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS; Transmission lines; W -band; Performance evaluation; Output power; Ge-Si alloys; Power gain; silicon-germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS; Implementation; Automotive radar; BiCMOS technology; Millimetric wave; Power combiners; Transmission line; current combining; Electrodiffusion; E-band; Data link; Multistage circuit; Cost lowering; Multistage method; power combining; power amplifier (PA); Large signal behavior; Compact design; Power electronics; Cascode connection; Combiner circuit; millimeter wave; High power; W-band; point-to-point link; Power amplifier; Reliability; Power transmission line
• ISSN: 0018-9480; 1557-9670
• DOI: 10.1109/TMTT.2013.2248376

An 83-GHz two-stage cascode power amplifier (PA) implemented in a low-cost 200/180-GHz fT / f max 0.18-μm SiGe BiCMOS technology is presented. The power-combining technique based upon a low-loss two-way transmission-line current combiner has been employed that simultaneously addresses the gain requirement at millimeter wave while delivering a high linear output power, making it a potential contender for multigigabit/second point-to-point data links. The combiner efficiency and large-signal power bandwidth (BW) are improved by the compact output matching network synthesized and excellent amplitude/phase balance of the proposed current combiner, which also considers the reliability issues such as electromigration and built-in redundancy during power device failure. At 83 GHz, the PA achieves a measured saturated power (P sat ) of 14.7 dBm, output-referred 1-dB compression point (OP 1dB ) of 12.5 dBm, peak power-added efficiency of 8.1%, and 1-dB large-signal power BW from 75 to 88 GHz. The measured peak power gain (S 21 ) is 25 dB with a 3-dB small-signal BW from 76.8 to 86.4 GHz while consuming a total dc power of 348 mW from a 4-V supply. The overall chip area is 610 μm × 560 μm (0.34 mm 2 ).