An 18 dBm 155-180 GHz SiGe Power Amplifier Using a 4-Way T-Junction Combining Network

Abstract

This paper presents a 4-way power amplifier (PA) using a T-junction network for efficient power combining. The circuit was implemented using a 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology with fT/fMAX= 300/500 GHz. The PA achieves 30.2 dB peak linear gain at 170 GHz and more than 27.2 dB in 155-180 GHz range. At 170 GHz the circuit delivers up to 18 dBm saturated output power (P SAT) with output referred 1 dB compression point (OP 1dB) at 15.6 dBm, which to the best author’s knowledge, are the highest among other previously reported silicon-based PAs above 140 GHz.