AN ULTRA-WIDEBAND SiGe BiCMOS LNA FOR W-BAND APPLICATIONS

This article presents the design steps and implementation of a W-band ultra-wideband low noise amplifier (LNA) for both automotive and imaging applications. Three amplifiers based on common-emitter topology with different configurations are manufactured using IHP 0.13 mu m SiGe BiCMOS 300/500 GHz (f(t)/f(max)) SG13G2 technology. A three-stage single-ended structure is proposed for ultra-wideband imaging purposes. As the results are analyzed, this 0.2 mm(2) LNA can operate in a 25 GHz of measured 3-dB bandwidth in W-band with 21 dB peak gain and 4.9 dB average noise figure using 1.5 V supply voltage. It consumes 50 mW of power in the edge operation conditions and the output 1 dB compression point is found as -4 dBm. To the authors' knowledge, this chip achieves one of the best overall performances compared to other W-band LNAs. (c) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 57:1274-1278, 2015