A V-Band Low-Power Compact LNA in 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS Technology

This letter presents the design of a V-band low-power compact low-noise amplifier (LNA) in a 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS technology. For the low-power and low-noise requirements, transistors need to operate with low-voltage supply and low current density, which comes at the cost of lower gain per BJT stage. We use a technique to cancel the Miller capacitance in a single-stage differential amplifier and achieve high-gain, low-power, and low-noise simultaneously. The circuit topology is analyzed, and the transistor core layout and the matching network design considerations are discussed. The measured circuit shows a peak gain of 14.1 dB in a 3-dB bandwidth from 44 to 67 GHz while consuming 5.1 mW. Experimental results show an output power of 7.1 dBm at 1-dB compression with an associated power-added efficiency of 30%. The simulated noise figure is 3.3 dB at the center frequency. To the best of the authors' knowledge, the highest figure of merit among V-band LNAs based on silicon is reported.

Subjects

Integrated circuit

low-noise amplifier (LNA)

low-power

Miller effect

mm-wave

silicon-germanium

wideband

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A V-Band Low-Power Compact LNA in 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS Technology