24 and 36 GHz SiGe HBT power amplifiers (original) (raw)

Design and Optimization of a High Efficiency 60 GHz SiGe-HBT Power Amplifier

2007 IEEE International Workshop on Radio-Frequency Integration Technology, 2007

This work presents the design and optimization strategies of a 60 GHz monolithic power amplifier. The circuit has been implemented utilizing an advanced 0.25 µm SiGe-HBT technology, featuring npn transistors with f T and f max ≈ 200 GHz. The technique used to achieve a minimum difference between the output power under 1 dB compression and saturated output power is explained. Following this, the analysis of supply voltage and bias current optimization is presented along with the simulation results. The developed two cascode power amplifiers show a measured small signal gain of 18.8 dB and an output power of 14.5 dBm under 1 dB gain compression at 61 GHz. At this frequency, the saturated output power is 15.5 dBm and the peak power added efficiency is 19.7 %. The power amplifier presented here has the highest power added efficiency so far, compared to all SiGe-HBT based power amplifiers in the 60 GHz frequency range.

A 60 GHz SiGe-HBT Power Amplifier With 20% PAE at 15 dBm Output Power

IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters, 2000

A monolithic power amplifier (PA) operating in the 60 GHz band is presented. The circuit has been designed utilizing an advanced 0.25 m SiGe-heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology, featuring npn transistors with and max 200 GHz. A two-stage cascode architecture has been chosen for the implementation. Design techniques and optimization procedure are explained in detail. Measurements show a small signal gain of 18.8 dB and an output power of 14.5 dBm under 1 dB gain compression at 61 GHz. At this frequency, the saturated output power is 15.5 dBm and the peak power added efficiency (PAE) is 19.7%. To our knowledge, this is the highest PAE reported so far for a monolithic 61 GHz PA in SiGe-HBT technology. Index Terms-Millimeter wave, monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC), power amplifier (PA), SiGe-heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology, 60 GHz.

SiGe HBT Wideband Amplifier for Millimetre Wave Applications

2006 International Conference on Microwaves, Radar & Wireless Communications, 2006

A wideband amplifier up to 50 GHz has been implemented in a 0.25 µ µ µm, 200 GHz f f f t t t SiGe BiCMOS technology. Die size was 0.7×0.73 mm 2 . The two-stage design achieves more than 11 dB gain over the whole 20 to 50 GHz band. Gain maximum was 14.2 dB at 47.5 GHz. Noise figure was lower than 9 dB up to 34 GHz and a current of 30 mA was drawn from a 4 V supply. To the author's best knowledge this is the highest gain bandwidth product of a monolithic SiGe HBT amplifier ever reported.

SiGe/Si power HBTs for X-to K-band applications

2002

High performance power SiGe/Si HBTs at X-band (8.4 GHz), Ku-band (12.6GHz) and K-band (18GHz) have been demonstrated. Under continuous wave operation, a single 20-finger Si/Si 0.75 Ge 0.25 /Si (emitter area of 1200 µ µ µ µm 2 ) HBT, biased in class AB, delivers 28.5dBm (700 mW) of RF output power at X-band, 25.5dBm (350mW) at Ku-band and 22.5dBm (180mW) at K-band. These represent the state-of-the-art power performance of SiGe-based HBTs at frequencies above X-band. An in-depth analysis of the power performance of HBTs with different geometry and configuration is also presented, which will eventually serve as a design guide for SiGe/Si power HBTs at different frequency of operation. 0-7803-7240-9/02/$10.00 © 2002 IEEE

Decade bandwidth single and cascaded travelling wave medium power amplifiers using sige hbts

2011

This paper presents two integrated class-A travelling wave medium power amplifiers employing 0.35μm SiGe HBT process. The first amplifier realized is a 1.3×1mm2 device comprising of a single-stage configuration using a single transistor that exhibits an average small-signal gain of 7dB and power level of 14dBm between 0.25 to 2.5GHz while maintaining power-added efficiency in the range 30% to 10%. The second amplifier is 1.8×2.3mm2 device comprising of a driver stage cascaded with two identical amplifier stages in a parallel configuration whose outputs are combined together to enhance the devices output power by 3dB across the wideband frequency range. This amplifier's unique topology is implemented using a version of the first amplifier. The amplifier's measured output power was approximately 18dBm, the average small-signal gain was 21dB, and efficiency between 30% to 10% across 0.2-2.2GHz.

SiGe power HBT's for low-voltage, high-performance RF applications

IEEE Electron Device Letters, 2000

Silicon-Germanium (SiGe) power heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT's) are fabricated by using two or ten device unit cells with an emitter area of 5 2 0:5 2 16:5 m 2 each. The large power transistor features 1 W rf output power at 3-dB gain compression, 3.5 V bias, and 2.4 GHz with a maximum power-added-efficiency (PAE) of 48% for Class A/B operation. At a supply voltage of 1.5 V, the transistor delivers a 3-dB rf output power of 150 mW with a PAE of 47%. It is shown that a high collector doping level is advantageous for low-voltage operation. Further, by using special bias sense ports, the interconnect losses are found to degrade the device performance to a considerable degree.

Cryogenic operation of a 24 GHz MMIC SiGe HBT medium power amplifier

Semiconductor Science and Technology, 2010

The performance of a SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) millimetre-wave power amplifier (PA) operating at cryogenic temperature was reported and analysed for the first time. A 24 GHz two-stage medium PA employing common-emitter and common-base SiGe power HBTs in the first and the second stage, respectively, showed a significant power gain increase at 77 K in comparison with that measured at room temperature. Detailed analyses indicate that cryogenic operation of SiGe HBT-based PAs mainly affects (improves) the performance of the SiGe HBTs in the circuits due to transconductance enhancement through magnified, favourable changes of SiGe bandgap due to cooling ( E g /kT) and minimized thermal effects, with little influence on the passive components of the circuits. (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version) Jazz Semiconductor's 0.18 μm SiGe90 process [13] was employed for the design and fabrication of the 24 GHz MMIC

Fully Integrated 5.8 GHz SiGe Power Amplifier

2008 38th European Microwave Conference, 2008

A fully integrated broadband push-pull power amplifier (PA) has been developed and fabricated in a 0.25 µm SiGe-HBT technology. Monolithic transformers are used to transform the 50 Ω input/output of the amplifier to the optimum load and source impedances of an efficient push-pull pair. Electromagnetic modeling of the whole chip structure has been carried out in order to optimize the performance of the presented PA. It achieves an output power of 20/23 dBm in saturation and 18/21 dBm at 1 dB power compression at a supply voltage of 1.2/1.8 V and a center frequency of 5.8 GHz. The maximum PAE is 18/20 %. A gain of (9.7±1) dB was observed over a wide frequency range from 4 GHz up to 6.4 GHz.

UHF SiGe HBT AMPLIFIER PARAMETERS AND NOISE CHARACTERISTICS

This work presents a description of CAD using Harmonica v.8 of UHF two-stage amplifier consisting SiGe transistor type BFP640. High values of S 21 (28dB), regime stability and low noise factor (NF=1.6-1.9 dB ) are reached. The frequency dependencies of S 11 , S 12 , S 21 and S 22 of the amplifier are presented in graphic forms.