Title :
A low power programmable gain high PAE K-/Ka-band stacked amplifier in 0.18 µm SiGe BiCMOS technology
Author :
Kumar, Thangarasu Bharatha ; Kaixue Ma ; Kiat Seng Yeo
Author_Institution :
Virtus Lab., Nanyang Technol. Univ., Singapore, Singapore
Abstract :
This paper presents a low power gain programmable high power efficient K-/Ka-band differential amplifier with current reuse topology. The amplifier achieves a best peak power added efficiency of 55.9% at the saturated power of +11.1 dBm and a variable gain from 1.8 dB to 16 dB with a 3-dB bandwidth from 21.8 GHz to 32.1 GHz. The design is fabricated in a commercial 0.18-μm SiGe BiCMOS process with maximum DC consumption of 12.5 mA from a single 1.8 V supply and a core amplifier design area of 500 μm × 450 μm.
Keywords :
BiCMOS integrated circuits; Ge-Si alloys; differential amplifiers; microwave amplifiers; BiCMOS technology; DC consumption; K-band; Ka-band; PAE; SiGe; bandwidth 21.8 GHz to 32.1 GHz; core amplifier; current 12.5 mA; current reuse topology; differential amplifier; efficiency 55.9 percent; gain 1.8 dB to 16 dB; low power programmable gain; power added efficiency; size 0.18 mum; stacked amplifier; voltage 1.8 V; BiCMOS integrated circuits; K-band; PHEMTs; Substrates; Switches; Current reuse topology; K-band; Ka-band; SiGe BiCMOS; low power design; power added efficiency (PAE); programmable gain amplifier (PGA); transformer coupled load;
Conference_Titel :
Microwave Symposium (IMS), 2015 IEEE MTT-S International
Conference_Location :
Phoenix, AZ
DOI :
10.1109/MWSYM.2015.7166782
