In this letter, a 125 to 143 GHz frequencyreconfigurable BiCMOS compact low-noise amplifier (LNA) is presented for the first time. It consists of two cascode stages and was fabricated using a 0.13-µm SiGe:C BiCMOS process which integrates RF-MEMS switches. A systematic general design procedure to obtain a balanced gain and noise figure in both frequency states is proposed. The LNA size is minimized by using only one RF-MEMS switch to select the frequency band and a multimodal three-line microstrip structure in the input matching network. The measured gain and noise figure are 18.2/16.1 dB and 7/7.7 dB at 125/143 GHz. The power consumption is 36.8 mW. Measured results are in good agreement with simulations. Index Terms-frequency-reconfigurable LNA, multimodal circuit, RF-MEMS switch.
The detailed synthesis of a direct access ring filter topology fully controlled with the following targeted specification (center frequency, low transmission zero frequency, and matching level in the passband) is hereby presented. For this topology, the lowest achievable bandwidth is limited by technological constraints. Thereby a solution consisting in adding capacitive loads is proposed. The associated synthesis is also given and discussed. Both syntheses are illustrated with 60 GHz integrated planar filters implemented in the IHP 130 nm BiCMOS technology. Various 3 dB fractional bandwidths from 18 to 8% are targeted, some of them require the implementation of the capacitive loaded solution. The latter allows us to lower the bandwidth limit of the nominal topology as well as to get a high miniaturization, up to 3.4, depending on the capacitance value. Thanks to good measurement results, this implementation highlights the high efficiency, reliability, and versatility of the synthesis without the need of tuning simulations or post-simulations.
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