A Fully-Integrated High-Isolation Transfer Switch for G-band in-situ Reflectometer applications

This paper describes two fully-integrated transfer switches designed for in-situ reflectometers and Built-In Self-Test applications (BIST) in the 140 to 220 GHz band (G-band). The proposed switches were designed in the STMicroelectronics 55-nm BiCMOS technology using the Single-Shunt and the Double-Shunt topology, respectively. In the 140 to 195 GHz frequency range, the Double-Shunt Transfer Switch shows an isolation between 27 and 46 dB, and an insertion loss between 5 and 7 dB. Compared to the Single-Shunt Transfer Switch, the double shunt switch presents a much better isolation while having a quite comparable insertion loss and area overhead. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed switches are the first fully integrated transfer switches in BiCMOS or CMOS technologies.