A 112-142GHz Power Amplifier with Regenerative Reactive Feedback achieving 17dBm peak Psat at 13% PAE

A 112-142GHz Power Amplifier with Regenerative Reactive Feedback achieving 17dBm peak Psat at 13% PAE ■

Akshay Visweswaran, Akshay Visweswaran, Akshay Visweswaran, Bastien Vignon, Bastien Vignon, Bastien Vignon, Xinyan Tang, Xinyan Tang, Xinyan Tang, Steven Brebels, Steven Brebels, Steven Brebels, Bjorn Debaillie, Bjorn Debaillie, Bjorn Debaillie, Piet Wambacq, Piet Wambacq, Piet Wambacq

Abstract ■

A two-way power-combining amplifier operating from 112-142GHz is presented. Integrated in Infineon's 0.13μm SiGe-BiCMOS technology,it delivers 17dBm of peak saturated power to a 50Ω load at 13\% PAE. Five fully-differential,transformer-coupled amplifier stages per path provide 34dB of forward transmission gain. Each 5-stage PA consists of capacitively gain-enhanced pre-drivers operated from 1.5V,followed by an inductively gain-enhanced cascoded driver powered by 3.3V. BJT models relevant at frequencies beyond 100GHz are evaluated to outline the trade-off between stability and gain exploited in this work. The design and layout of a folded,fully-differential,λ/4 power combiner is also presented,along with a full two-port characterization of the power-amplifier prototype.