Millimeter-Wave Wafer-Scale Silicon BiCMOS Power Amplifiers Using Free-Space Power Combining

This paper describes the first fundamental frequency single-chip transceiver operating at -band. The low-IF monostatic transceiver integrates on a single chip two 120-GHz voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs), a 120-GHz divide-by-64 chain, two in-phase/quadrature (IQ) receivers with phase-calibration circuitry, a variable gain transmit amplifier, an antenna directional coupler, a patch antenna, bias circuitry, a transmit power detector, and a temperature sensor. A quartz antenna resonator with 6-dBi gain and simulated 50% efficiency is placed directly above the on-chip patch to transmit and receive the 120-GHz signals. The circuit with the above-integrated-circuit antenna occupies an area of 2.2 mm 2.6 mm, consumes 900 mW from 1.2-and 1.8-V supplies, and was wire-bonded in an open-lid 7 mm 7 mm quad-flat no-leads package. Some transceiver performance parameters were characterized on the packaged chip, mounted on an evaluation board, while others, such as receiver noise figure and VCO phase noise at the 120-GHz output were measured on circuit breakouts. The AMOS-varactor VCOs have a typical phase noise of 100 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset and a tuning range of 115.2-123.9 GHz. The receiver gain and the transmitter output power are each adjustable over a range of 15 dB with a maximum transmitter output power of 3.6 dBm. The receiver IQ phase difference, measured at the IF outputs of the packaged transceiver, is adjustable from 70°to 110°, while the amplitude imbalance remains less than 1 dB. The receiver breakout gain and double-sideband noise figure are 10.5-13 and 10.5-11.5 dB, respectively, with an input compression point of 20.5 dBm. Several experiments were conducted through the air over distances of up to 2.1 m with a focusing lens placed above the packaged chip.Index Terms--band, distance sensor, Doppler radar, integrated antenna, in-phase/quadrature (IQ) receiver, 120-GHz transceiver, phase calibration circuit, radar sensor, SiGe BiCMOS.

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“…Similar antenna solutions with comparable performance have also been reported at 94 GHz in [18] and [19].…”

Section: A Antenna Designsupporting

confidence: 79%

A Fundamental Frequency 120-GHz SiGe BiCMOS Distance Sensor With Integrated Antenna

Sarkas

Hasch

Balteanu

et al. 2012

IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Techn.

108

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“…In addition, the transformer-coupled PA topology adopted in this work occupies a relatively small chip area [18], [21], [25], and it is also frequency scalable. The wafer-scale free-space power combining PA [26] realizes approximately 3 dB greater output power at the cost of a factor of 66 times larger chip area and 9 times higher DC power consumption. The PA using open/short circuited stubs for matching [27] also consumes more than twice the chip area and has poorer efficiency.…”

Section: B 77/79 Ghz-band Pa Prototypementioning

confidence: 99%

A Wideband, Dual-Path, Millimeter-Wave Power Amplifier With 20 dBm Output Power and PAE Above 15% in 130 nm SiGe-BiCMOS

Zhao

Long

2012

IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits

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A frequency-scalable, three-stage, transformercoupled millimeter-wave power amplifier (PA) is implemented in 130 nm SiGe-BiCMOS. Differential common-base gain stages extend collector-emitter breakdown voltage beyond 3 V, while collector-emitter neutralization increases reverse isolation and stability. Monolithic self-shielded transformers designed for low insertion loss and compact dimensions on-chip include: a 2:4 input power splitter, a 4:1 output balun combiner and inter-stage coupling transformers. The balun combiner and fully-differential splitter are compensated for imbalances caused by parasitic interwinding capacitance, and simulations predict better than 3% uniformity between reflected port-to-port impedances at 60 GHz. Simulated impedance uniformity is within 6% from 55-65 GHz, and insertion loss of the 0.015 mm combiner prototypes at 60 GHz is below 1 dB.The 0.72 mm 60 GHz-band PA realizes a measured peak smallsignal gain higher than 20 dB with over 10 GHz 3 dB bandwidth. Reverse isolation is better than 51 dB from 50-65 GHz and the PA is unconditionally stable. It consumes 353 mW (quiescent) from a 1.8 V supply and the active area is 0.25 mm . Maximum output power and peak power-added efficiency (PAE) are 20.1 dBm and 18% at 62 GHz, respectively. An up-banded 79-87.5 GHz PA is also implemented to verify frequency scalability of the design. The 0.23 mm active area 79 GHz PA prototype produces 18 dBm saturated output power and 9% peak-PAE at 84 GHz from a 2.5 V supply.

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“…Feasibility of wafer-scale integration of BiCMOS power amplifiers with an antenna array on quartz substrate was demonstrated at 94 GHz in [30]. A 3 × 3 amplifier array with size of 7.3 mm × 6 mm was implemented together with the feeding network.…”

Section: Phased Arraysmentioning

confidence: 99%

High gain 60 GHz LTCC chain antenna array with substrate integrated waveguide feed network

Lamminen

Säily

2012

2012 6th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP)

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Millimeter-Wave Wafer-Scale Silicon BiCMOS Power Amplifiers Using Free-Space Power Combining

Cited by 76 publications

References 38 publications

A Fundamental Frequency 120-GHz SiGe BiCMOS Distance Sensor With Integrated Antenna

A Fundamental Frequency 120-GHz SiGe BiCMOS Distance Sensor With Integrated Antenna

A Wideband, Dual-Path, Millimeter-Wave Power Amplifier With 20 dBm Output Power and PAE Above 15% in 130 nm SiGe-BiCMOS

High gain 60 GHz LTCC chain antenna array with substrate integrated waveguide feed network

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