A 45-GHz SiGe HBT amplifier at greater than 25 % efficiency and 30 mW output power

Author

Dabag, Hayg-Taniel ; Kim, Joohwa ; Larson, Lawrence E. ; Buckwalter, James F. ; Asbeck, Peter M.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of California, La Jolla, CA, USA

fYear

2011

fDate

9-11 Oct. 2011

Firstpage

25

Lastpage

28

Abstract

An efficient power amplifier (PA) is demonstrated in a 0.12-μm silicon germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS process at 45 GHz. The amplifier is a single stage common-emitter amplifier (CE). The voltage handling capability of the amplifier is extended by a low impedance biasing network. The amplifier achieves a peak power-added efficiency (PAE) of 25 % at an output power of 13 dBm in linear operation and 31% in class B mode at an output power of 13.3 dBm. The maximum saturated output power P_sat is 14.8 dBm, at which the circuit consumes 77 mW. The chip occupies an area of 0.27 mm² including pads.

Keywords

BiCMOS analogue integrated circuits; Ge-Si alloys; field effect MIMIC; heterojunction bipolar transistors; millimetre wave bipolar transistors; millimetre wave power amplifiers; HBT amplifier; SiGe; efficiency 25 percent; frequency 45 GHz; low impedance biasing network; power 30 mW; power 77 mW; power amplifier; power-added efficiency; silicon germanium BiCMOS process; single stage common-emitter amplifier; size 0.12 mum; voltage handling capability; Current measurement; Gain; Heterojunction bipolar transistors; Impedance; Impedance matching; Power generation; Silicon germanium; 45GHz; BiCMOS; Q-band; millimeter-wave integrated circuit; power amplifier;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Bipolar/BiCMOS Circuits and Technology Meeting (BCTM), 2011 IEEE

Conference_Location

Atlanta, GA

ISSN

1088-9299

Print_ISBN

978-1-61284-165-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/BCTM.2011.6082742

Filename

6082742