A 1.1 THz Gain-Bandwidth W-Band Amplifier in a 0.12 μm Silicon Germanium BiCMOS Process

A W-band, cascaded constructive wave amplifier realizes high gain and bandwidth in a 0.12 mu m SiGe BiCMOS process. The amplifier achieves 37.5 dB gain at 90 GHz with a 3 dB bandwidth of 14.6 GHz. Consequently, this amplifier demonstrates a gain-bandwidth product as high as 1,095 GHz. At nominal bias condition, input and output return losses are better than 11 dB over the entire 3 dB bandwidth and the output-referred dB is -5.5 dBm. The amplifier consumes 65 mW from a 1.8 V at a nominal bias condition and 130 mW from a 2 V at a high-gain bias condition. The chip occupies an area of 0.39 mm(2) including the pads.