An 80–106 GHz CMOS amplifier with 0.5V supply voltage

Abstract

A low-power CMOS W-band amplifier that feeds on a 0.5-V supply is presented. It achieves a peak gain of 24.1 dB and consumes 12mW. This was made possible by (a) the use of Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor 55-nm CMOS technology with deeply depleted channel (DDC) MOSFETs, which are meant specifically for ultralow-power designs with sub-1V supply voltage, (b) high-ƒmax transistor layout, which gives about 1 dB higher gain in the W-band than the ordinary layout, and (c) single-ended negative-capacitance feedback technique, which gives wideband gain boosting comparable to its differential counterpart (with cross-coupled feedback capacitors) with half the power consumption of the latter.