A D-band transceiver front-end for broadband applications in a 0.35μm SiGe bipolar technology

This paper presents a D-band transceiver front-end with twin quadrature receivers fabricated in a low cost 0.35μm SiGe bipolar production technology, featuring HBTs with fT/fmax of 200/250 GHz. The receiver achieves a minimum single-sideband noise figure of 14 dB, conversion gain greater than 23 dB and an input-referred 1-dB compression point of -9 dBm, at an IF of 10 MHz for input signals between 121-126 GHz. A three stage LO buffer amplifier in the receiver allows operation with LO power as low as -10 dBm. The measured amplitude and phase imbalance at 122 GHz are 1 dB and 6 deg respectively. The transmitter can be tuned from 112 GHz to 140 GHz and delivers a maximum output power of -2.5 dBm. The measured phase noise at 1 MHz offset is -102 dBc/Hz at 140 GHz. The maximum suppression of the V-band signal at the transmitter output is better than -25 dBc. The chip consumes 300 mA from a 3.3 V power supply.