A W-Band Wideband Power Amplifier with 18.3 dBm Psat and 15.4% PAE in 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS

Abstract

This paper presents a two-stage wideband W-band power amplifier (PA) designed in 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology. By employing the gain-distribution technique, the PA delivers a flat gain response over a wide bandwidth (BW). The proposed PA achieves high saturated output power $(P_{\mathrm{s}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{t}})$ and power-added efficiency (PAE) by paralleling multiple small-sized transistors. According to the simulated results, the PA exhibits a peak gain of 22.3 dB at 88 GHz with a 3-dB BW of 29.2 GHz. At 94 GHz, the simulated $P_{\mathrm{s}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{t}}$ and the peak PAE are 18.3 dBm and 15.4%, respectively. Such performances are excellent for a single-ended PA based on the SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT). The small chip size of the PA, including all testing pads, is only $500\times 620\mu \mathrm{m}^{2}$.