A 110–180 GHz broadband amplifier in 65-nm CMOS process

A 110-180 GHz broadband amplifier with 10 dB small signal gain is developed in 65-nm CMOS process. The small signal gain of this amplifier is 19 dB at 170 GHz. To the authors´ knowledge, this is the first amplifier covering full D-band. This paper proposes a design method to determine the minimal amount of cascade stages with the desirable gain performance. In order to enhance the bandwidth, the impedance transformation technique using a trans-impedance stage is also discussed. The topology of proposed circuit has 4-stage single-ended cascode and one trans-impedance stage, and the total chip size is 0.37mm².