A D-Band Low-Noise-Amplifier in SiGe BiCMOS with Broadband Multi-Resonance Matching Networks

Abstract

Silicon amplifiers in D-Band are required to operate at high gain-bandwidth products and close to the cutoff frequency $f_{\max }$. Multi-stage amplifiers commonly employ stagger-tuning to meet the desired bandwidth, but with sub-optimal noise and linearity. Better performance is achieved with broadband inter-stage matching and gain progressively distributed among the stages. This work proposes a design flow for broadband matching networks approximating the response of a doubly-tuned transformer. The technique is applied to design a 3-stage D-band LNA in BiCMOS 55 nm technology. Measurements show 28 dB gain, 127-168 GHz bandwidth, NF down to 5.2 dB and >2dBm output compression point with 30 mA DC current from 2V supply. The performance compare favorably against previous works.