A broadband (1-20 GHz) SiGe monolithic SPDT switch

Abstract

This paper reports the performances of a broadband monolithic SiGe PIN diode SPDT switch that is based on the IBM 5-HP SiGe foundry process. The switch contains a tightly integrated series-shunt vertical PIN structure in each arm having a junction area of 50 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ and 80 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ respectively. On-chip resistive bias networks are used to ensure broadband operation. The switch "ON" arm demonstrates a path-loss of less than 1.3 dB while its "OFF" arm maintains an isolation of greater than 40 dB across 1-20 GHz. The total DC power consumption for maintaining such a high performance is only 22 mW. The switching speed, the 1-dB insertion loss compression point and the third order intercept point were found to be <1 nsec, 19 dBm, and 30.0 dBm respectively.