A 20dBm E-band power amplifier in SiGe BiCMOS technology

Abstract

This paper presents a fully integrated 71-76GHz power amplifiers (PA) fabricated in a 0.12μm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The PA employs five common-emitter stages with on-chip power combining to achieve power gain of 21dB, 17.6dBm output power at 1dB compression, and saturated power of 20.1dBm. The modified Wilkinson combiner that was used shows 0.5dB insertion loss. Small signal characteristics of the amplifier show peak gain at 72GHz with 3dB bandwidth of 17GHz (24%). The PA's bias is applied using digitally adjustable PTAT bias circuits and it consumes quiescent currents of 140mA from a 2V supply and 280mA at 1dB compression. © 2012 EUROPEAN MICROWAVE ASSOC.