Decade bandwidth single and cascaded travelling wave medium power amplifiers using sige hbts (original) (raw)
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IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, 2014
Design equations and performance limits of Class-E power amplifiers at mm-waves, including the limitations imposed by active and passive devices in a given technology, are presented in this paper. A beyond nominal breakdown voltage Class-E design methodology for SiGe HBT power amplifiers is proposed to generate high output power while maintaining high Class-E efficiency. A mm-wave SiGe stacked Class-E architecture is also introduced to increase the overall voltage swing, with each series stacked device operating in the beyond nominal breakdown mode. The mm-wave beyond operation of SiGe HBTs has been demonstrated experimentally in an integrated 45 GHz Class-E power amplifier fabricated in a 0.13 µm SiGe BiCMOS process with 20 dBm measured output power at 31.5% peak power-added efficiency (PAE). The series stacking of mm-wave Class-E power amplifier concept is also verified by fabricating double-stacked and triple-stacked SiGe HBT power amplifiers in 0.13 µm SiGe BiCMOS process which demonstrate a measured output power of 23.4 dBm at 41 GHz with peak PAE of 34.9%. High power, highly efficient, switching power amplifier unit cells presented in this paper can facilitate realization of efficient Watt-level mm-wave digital polar transmitters.
24 and 36 GHz SiGe HBT power amplifiers
2008
We present in this paper two amplifiers using the SiGe HBT technology, operating at 24 GHz and 36 GHz, respectively. The first amplifier was designed to operate in the 24 GHz ISM band, especially for traffic and automotive applications. In the next step, this amplifier was improved to reach higher frequencies. Both amplifiers show a gain higher than 20 dB, a good matching as well as a high output linearity.
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.
Single stage travelling wave power amplifier
In this paper a Class-A power amplifier design is described that comprises of a single transistor using artificial transmission lines. The amplifier's structure can be considered as a conventional travelling wave amplifier comprising only one transistor referred to here as a single-stage travelling wave amplifier (SSTWA). The SSTWA structure using 0.35µm SiGe process is demonstrated to provide medium power output and power-added efficiency results making the device suitable for numerous power applications in wireless microwave systems.
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.
Design techniques and considerations for mmwave SiGe power amplifiers
2009 SBMO/IEEE MTT-S International Microwave and Optoelectronics Conference (IMOC), 2009
This paper describes the techniques to design a SiGe power amplifier (PA) for millimeter wave (mmW) applications. The design methodology of a balanced four-stage common emitter circuit topology was reported. The power amplifier was fully integrated including matching elements and bias circuit. The matching networks use coplanar waveguide (CPW) lines and MIM capacitors. Design considerations including parasitic elements, interconnections, pad model and matching structures are detailed. All these elements are taken into account to optimize the maximum output power. A comparison of the simulated and measured small-signal results is presented up to 110GHz. The simulated and measured large-signal parameters are shown at 60, 65 and 77GHz.
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 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.