220-GHz metamorphic HEMT amplifier MMICs for high-resolution imaging applications

In this paper, the development of 220-GHz low-noise amplifier (LNA) MMICs for use in high-resolution active and passive millimeter-wave imaging systems is presented. The amplifier circuits have been realized using a well-proven 0.1-/spl mu/m gate length and an advanced 0.05-/spl mu/m gate length InAlAs/InGaAs based depletion-type metamorphic high electron mobility transistor technology. Furthermore, coplanar circuit topology in combination with cascode transistors was applied, leading to a compact chip size and an excellent gain performance at high millimeter-wave frequencies. A realized single-stage 0.05-/spl mu/m cascode LNA exhibited a small-signal gain of 10 dB at 222 GHz, while a 0.1-/spl mu/m four-stage amplifier circuit achieved a linear gain of 20 dB at the frequency of operation and more than 10 dB over the bandwidth from 180 to 225 GHz.     

Broad-band GaAs monolithic equalizing amplifiers formultigigabit-per-second optical receivers

The authors discuss the development of ICs (integrated circuits) for a preamplifier, a gain-controllable amplifier, and main amplifiers with and without a three-way divider for multigigabit-per-second optical receivers using a single-ended parallel feedback circuit, two (inductor and capacitor) peaking techniques, and advanced GaAs process technology. An optical front-end circuit consisting of a GaAs preamplifier and an InGaAs p-i-n photodiode achieves a 3-dB bandwidth of 7 GHz and -12-dBm sensitivity at 10 Gb/s. Moreover, a gain-controllable amplifier obtains a maximum gain of 15 dB, a gain dynamic range of 25 dB, and a 3-dB bandwidth of 6.1 GHz by controlling the source bias of the common-source circuit. Gain, 3-dB bandwidth, and output power of the main amplifier with the three-way divider are 17.4 dB, 5.2 GHz, and 5 dBm, respectively. These ICs can be applied to optical receivers transmitting NRZ signals in excess of 7 Gb/s     

GaAs-based high-gain direct-coupled distributed preamplifier using active feedback topology

A single-chip ultra-high gain distributed amplifier (DA) was developed using commercial GaAs PHEMT foundry for 40-Gb/s base band applications. Two seven-section DAs are directly coupled using a lumped dc level-shift circuit. The dc bias level of the second-stage DA can be tuned using the level-shift circuit for optimum gain. The gain of each DA stage has been optimized using a novel active feedback cascode topology, which allows the gain bandwidth product to be maximized while avoiding instability problems. The fabricated single-chip DA with a size of 2.1 mm /spl times/ 2.3 mm showed a high gain of 28 dB, and an average noise figure of 4.6 dB with a 41 GHz bandwidth. The corresponding transimpedance gain was 62 dB/spl Omega/ and the input noise current density was 14.5 pA//spl radic/Hz. The gain bandwidth product (GBWP) is 1030 GHz, which corresponds to the highest performance using GaAs technology for 40 Gb/s applications.     

2～20GHz分布式单片放大器设计

介绍了一种采用0.15μm GaAs PHEMT工艺设计加工的2～20 GHz宽带单片放大器,为了提高电路的整体增益和带宽,在设计电路时采用两级级联分布式结构。此种电路结构不仅能够增加整体电路的增益和带宽,还可以提高电路的反向隔离,获得更低的噪声系数。利用Agilent ADS仿真设计软件对整体电路的原理图和版图进行仿真优化设计。后期电路在中国电子科技集团公司第十三研究所砷化镓工艺线上加工完成。电路性能指标:在2～20 GHz工作频率范围内,小信号增益>13.5 dB;输入输出回波损耗<-9 dB;噪声系数<4.0 dB;P-1>13 dBm。放大器的工作电压5 V,功耗400 mW,芯片面积为3.00 mm×1.6 mm。     

Design of a 40-GHz LNA in 0.13-μm SiGe BiCMOS

A low-noise amplifier (LNA) operated at 40 GHz is designed. An improved cascode configuration is proposed and the design of matching networks is presented. Short-circuited coplanar waveguides (CPWs) were used as inductors to achieve a high Q-factor. The circuit was fabricated in a 0.13-μm SiGe BiCMOS technology with a transistor transit frequency fT of 103 GHz. The chip area is 0.21 mm2. The LNA has one cascode stage with a-3 dB bandwidth from 34 to 44 GHz. At 40 GHz, the measured gain is 8.6 dB; the input return loss, S11, is-16.2 dB; and the simulated noise figure is 5 dB. The circuit draws a current of only 3 mA from a 2.5 V supply.     

40-Gb/s High-Gain Distributed Amplifiers With Cascaded Gain Stages in 0.18-μm CMOS

A novel circuit topology for high-gain distributed amplifiers is presented in this study. Based on the conventional distributed architecture, the gain cells are realized by cascading cas- code stages for gain enhancement. In addition, the stagger-tuning technique is extensively utilized in the design of the cascode stages as well as the cascaded stages, leading to significant improvement in terms of the operating bandwidth and the gain flatness. With the proposed circuit architecture, two amplifiers are implemented in a standard 0.18-mum CMOS technology. The amplifier with a 3 times 3 configuration exhibits a gain of 16.2 dB and a 3-dB bandwidth of 33.4 GHz, while the one in a form of 2 times 4 demonstrates a gain of 20 dB and a bandwidth of 39.4 GHz. Consuming a dc power of 260 mW from a 2.8-V supply voltage, both circuits provide clear eye-opening with a pseudorandom bit sequence (PRBS) at 40 Gb/s.     

Design of a low noise distributed amplifier with adjustable gain control in 0.15μm GaAs PHEMT

正A low noise distributed amplifier consisting of 9 gain cells is presented.The chip is fabricated with 0.15-μm GaAs pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor(PHEMT) technology from Win Semiconductor of Taiwan.A special optional gate bias technique is introduced to allow an adjustable gain control range of 10 dB.A novel cascode structure is adopted to extend the output voltage and bandwidth.The measurement results show that the amplifier gives an average gain of 15 dB with a gain flatness of±1 dB in the 2-20 GHz band.The noise figure is between 2 and 4.1 dB during the band from 2 to 20 GHz.The amplifier also provides 13.8 dBm of output power at a 1 dB gain compression point and 10.5 dBm of input third order intercept point(IIP3),which demonstrates the excellent performance of linearity.The power consumption is 300 mW with a supply of 5 V,and the chip area is 2.36×1.01 mm~2.     

Linearized Darlington Cascode Amplifier Employing GaAs PHEMT and GaN HEMT Technologies

This paper reports on the results of a new Darlington cascode (DCAS) feedback amplifier topology implemented with 0.5 mum E-mode GaAs PHEMT technology. The Darlington cascode employs active self-bias and a linearizing Darlington cascode circuit for achieving enhanced gain and IP3-bandwidth performance. The Darlington cascode achieves 12.5 dB gain with a 16 GHz 3 dB bandwidth (BW)-a 60% BW improvement over an equivalent conventional Darlington amplifier design. The DCAS obtains an IP3 of 29 dBm with a 13 GHz BW-an 80% improvement in IP3-BW over the conventional Darlington approach. These improvements have been obtained without significantly compromising noise figure, stability, or bias robustness. The DCAS amplifier design approach was also successfully applied to a high-voltage GaN HEMT technology and resulted in greater than 1 W output power over a multi-octave 1-4GHz band. The DCAS topology offers an approach for compacting high microwave performance into a small area without the use of distributed or reactive matching techniques.     

A design technique for a 60 GHz-bandwidth distributed basebandamplifier IC module

A DC-60 GHz, 9 dB distributed amplifier IC module is fabricated with 0.15 μm InAlAs-InGaAs low-noise HEMTs with 155 GHz f_T and 234 GHz f_max. The device is mounted in a metal package with 1.8 mm coaxial cable signal interfaces. The package is specially designed using three-dimensional electromagnetic field analyses, resulting in very flat frequency characteristics of the module within 1.5 dB gain ripples over the entire bandwidth. A multichip module loaded with two amplifier ICs in cascade is also fabricated, and operates at a 17.5 dB gain from 60 kHz to 48 GHz. The 1 dB gain compression output power is about 5 dBm for both modules. The noise figure of the single-chip module is approximately 4 dB over a 10-40 GHz frequency range     

A SiGe MMIC variable gain cascode amplifier

A silicon-germanium variable gain cascode amplifier has been developed to combine the functionality of an amplifier and an attenuator into one monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC). The cascode amplifier, which was designed for a 7-11 GHz frequency range, achieved a gain of 12.5 dB, an input return loss of 7.5 dB, and an output return loss of 12.5 dB. The cascode amplifier exhibited 16 dB of gain control.     

220GHz低噪声放大器研究

基于IHP锗硅BiCMOS工艺,研究和实现了两种220 GHz低噪声放大器电路,并将其应用于220 GHz太赫兹无线高速通信收发机电路。一种是220 GHz四级单端共基极低噪声放大电路,每级电路采用了共基极（Common Base, CB）电路结构,利用传输线和金属-绝缘体-金属(Metal-Insulator-Metal, MIM)电容等无源电路元器件构成输入、输出和级间匹配网络。该低噪放电源的电压为1.8 V,功耗为25 mW,在220 GHz频点处实现了16 dB的增益,3 dB带宽达到了27 GHz。另一种是220 GHz四级共射共基差分低噪声放大电路,每级都采用共射共基的电路结构,放大器利用微带传输线和MIM电容构成每级的负载、Marchand-Balun、输入、输出和级间匹配网络等。该低噪放电源的电压为3 V,功耗为234 mW,在224 GHz频点实现了22 dB的增益,3 dB带宽超过6 GHz。这两个低噪声放大器可应用于220 GHz太赫兹无线高速通信收发机电路。     

High gain operational amplifier implemented in 0.5 μm GaAs E/DHEMT technology

A high voltage gain operational amplifier implemented in 0.5 μm GaAs E/D HEMT technology is presented. The amplifier principally consists of a differential input stage and a high gain cascode stage which was developed by Toumazou and Haigh (1990). On-wafer measurement verifies that the amplifier achieves an open-loop voltage gain of 73 dB and a unity-gain bandwidth of 1.78 GHz     

Extending the bandwidth performance of heterojunction bipolartransistor-based distributed amplifiers

An InAlAs-InGaAs-InP HBT CPW distributed amplifier (DA) with a 2-30 GHz 1-dB bandwidth has been demonstrated which benchmarks the widest bandwidth reported for an HBT DA. The DA combines a 100 GHz fmax and 60 GHz fT HBT technology with a cascode coplanar waveguide DA topology to achieve this record bandwidth. The cascode gain cell offers 5-7 dB more available gain (MAG) than a common-emitter, and is used to extend the amplifier's upper frequency performance. A coplanar waveguide design environment is used to simplify the modeling and fabrication, as well as to reduce the size of the amplifier. Novel active load terminations for extending the DA's lower frequency response were separately demonstrated. The active loads are capable of extending the lower bandwidth performance by two decades resulting in performance below 45 MHz. This work explores both design techniques and technology capability which can be applied to other distributively matched HBT circuits such as active baluns for mixers, active combiners/dividers, and low DC power-broadband amplifiers     

A 86 to 108 GHz Amplifier in 90 nm CMOS

This letter presents a CMOS amplifier with 22 GHz 3-dB bandwidth ranging from 86 to 108 GHz. The amplifier is implemented in 90 nm mixed signal/radio frequency (RF) CMOS process using three-stage cascode RF NMOS configuration. It achieves a peak gain of 17.4 dB at 91 GHz from the measured results. To our knowledge, this is the highest frequency CMOS amplifier reported to date.     

（英）CMOS毫米波低功耗超宽带共栅低噪声放大器

本文陈述了一个基于单端共栅与共源共栅级联结构的超宽带低噪声放大器(LNA)。该LNA用标准90-nm RF CMOS工艺实现并具有如下特征：在28.5到39 GHz频段内测得的平坦增益大于10 dB;-3 dB带宽从27到42 GHz达到了15 GHz,这几乎覆盖了整个Ka带;最小噪声系数(NF)为4.2 dB,平均NF在27-42 GHz频段内为5.1 dB;S₁₁在整个测试频段内小于-11 dB。40 GHz处输入三阶交调点(IIP3)的测试值为 2 dBm。整个电路的直流功耗为5.3 mW。包括焊盘在内的芯片面积为0.58*0.48 mm2_。     

Fabrication of Transimpedance Amplifier Module and Post‐Amplifier Module for 40 Gb/s Optical Communication Systems

The design and performance of an InGaAs/InP transimpedance amplifier and post amplifier for 40 Gb/s receiver applications are presented. We fabricated the 40 Gb/s transimpedance amplifier and post amplifier using InGaAs/InP heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology. The developed InGaAs/InP HBTs show a cut‐off frequency (f_T) of 129 GHz and a maximum oscillation frequency (f_max) of 175 GHz. The developed transimpedance amplifier provides a bandwidth of 33.5 GHz and a gain of 40.1 dBΩ. A 40 Gb/s data clean eye with 146 mV amplitude of the transimpedance amplifier module is achieved. The fabricated post amplifier demonstrates a very wide bandwidth of 36 GHz and a gain of 20.2 dB. The post‐amplifier module was fabricated using a Teflon PCB substrate and shows a good eye opening and an output voltage swing above 520 mV.     

Wideband monolithic GaAs amplifier using cascodes

A monolithic matched, two-stage wideband amplifier with an insertion gain of 26dB and a ? 3dB bandwidth of 3-2GHz is reported. Optimally designed cascode circuits are used to enhance the gain-bandwidth product available per stage. The IC has been fabricated in a I? depletion GaAs MESFET technology.     

Low-power InP/GaAsSb/InP DHBT cascode transimpedance amplifier with GBP/P/sub dc/ of 7.2 GHz/mW

A low-power high gain-bandwidth monolithic cascode transimpedance amplifier using novel InP/GaAsSb/InP DHBT technology was investigated. The amplifier exhibited state-of-the-art performance of 17.3 dB gain, 12 GHz bandwidth, 55 dB/spl Omega/ transimpedance, and a corresponding gain-bandwidth of 6.7 THz/spl Omega/ while consuming only 12.2 mW DC power. It also achieved good gain-bandwidth-product per DC power figure-of-merit (GBP/P/sub dc/) of 7.2 GHz/mW     

100-GHz high-gain InP MMIC cascode amplifier

A high-gain InP monolithic millimeter-wave integrated circuit (MMIC) cascode amplifier has been developed which has 8.0 dB of average gain from 75 to 100 GHz when biased for maximum bandwidth, and more than 12 dB of gain at 80 GHz at the maximum-gain bias point, representing the highest gains reported to date, obtained from MMICs at W band (75-100 GHz). Lattice-matched InGaAs-InAlAs high-electron-mobility-transistors (HEMTs) with 0.1-μm gates were the active devices. A coplanar waveguide (CPW) was the transmission medium for this MMIC with an overall chip dimension of 600×500 μm     

一种采用有源电感的可调增益小面积超宽带低噪声放大器

设计了一款采用可调谐有源电感（TAI）的可调增益的小面积超宽带低噪声放大器(LNA),输入级采用共基极结构,输出级采用射随器结构,分别实现了宽带输入和输出匹配;放大级采用带有反馈电阻的共射共基结构以取得宽的带宽,并采用TAI作负载,通过调节TAI的多个外部偏压使LNA的增益可调。结果表明,该LNA在2~9GHz的频带内,通过组合调节有源电感调节端口的偏压可实现S21在16.5~21.1dB的连续可调;S11小于-14.7dB;S22小于-19.3dB;NF小于4.9dB;芯片面积仅为0.049mm2。