A D-band power amplifier with 30-ghz bandwidth and 4.5-dBm Psat for high-speed communication system

Abstract

This paper presents a D-band power amplifier for high- speed communication system. The capacitive effect of interconnection via on transistor performance at high frequency is analyzed and a new via structure is employed to reduce the capacitive effect. The on-chip matching technique for high frequency amplifier is analyzed and the thin-film microstrip line matching network is used, which is combined with biasing network to reduce RF signal loss and silicon cost. The amplifier is fabricated in 0.13-μm SiGe BiCMOS process. The experimental results show a 7dB gain at 130GHz with 3-dB bandwidth of 30-GHz. The input return loss is better than 10dB over 23GHz. In addition, this amplifier achieves saturated output power (Psat) of 4.5dBm and input 1-dB gain compression point (P1 dB) of -4.5dBm. The chip size of implemented power amplifier is only 0.22mm2.