Building blocks for an X-Band SiGe BiCMOS T/R module

This paper presents the building blocks of an X-Band T/R module in a 0.25 μm SiGe BiCMOS technology for phased arrays. The T/R module consists of a T/R switch, two SPDT switches, a power amplifier, a low noise amplifier, a phase shifter and a variable gain amplifier (not presented). The T/R switch, SPDT switch and the phase shifter are implemented using CMOS transistors whereas the PA and LNA are based on SiGe HBTs. The designed T/R switch achieves minimum insertion loss of 2.1 dB, an isolation of 42 dB and has an input P1dB of 27.4 dBm at 10 GHz. The SPDT switch has less than 2.2 dB loss at X-Band. The PA resulted in a small-signal gain of 25 dB and a saturated output power of 23.2 dBm with 25 % PAE. The LNA has 1.65 dB noise figure (mean) with a gain more than 19 dB at X-Band. Lastly, the phase shifter achieves simulated RMS phase and gain errors of 1°-3.5° and 0.8-1.8 dB at X-Band.