A 91 GHz receiver front-end in silicon-germanium technology

Abstract

A W-band receiver front-end, including a lownoise amplifier (LNA), a coupled-wire Marchand balun and a double-balanced mixer, has been designed and fabricated in IBM's 8HP 0.12µm, 200GHz-f T SiGe technology. The circuit operates in the 87-94GHz frequency range with a peak conversion gain of 36.3dB and a minimum single sideband (SSB) noise figure of 10dB. At 91GHz the measured 1dB input compression point is -36dBm. The entire circuit occupies 1.82mm 2 including bond pads and dissipates only 109.7mW. To the authors' knowledge this front-end achieves the highest conversion gain among published receiver frontends in silicon-based technology operating beyond 90GHz.Index Terms -W-band, receiver, front-end design, lownoise amplifier (LNA), mixer, SiGe, millimeter-wave, balun