Design of a wideband 0.18‐μm SiGe BiCMOS power amplifier in Ku and K bands

Abstract

AbstractA new wideband 0.18‐μm SiGe BiCMOS power amplifier (PA) operating from 16.5 to 25.5 GHz is presented. The PA consists of a drive amplifier and two main amplifiers integrated through lumped‐element Wilkinson power divider and combiner. The PA exploits the advantages of both HBT and NMOS characteristics in a cascode topology in addition to floating the NMOS body to achieve good gain, output power, power‐aided efficiency (PAE), and linearity. The developed PA has relatively flat saturated output power (Psat) of 18.5‐20.8 dBm, output 1‐dB compression point (OP1dB) of 15.1‐18.1 dBm, 13.5‐23% maximum PAE, and gain of 19.5 ±1.5 dB across 16.5‐25.5 GHz. At 24 GHz, the PA achieves Psat, OP1dB, maximum PAE, and gain of 20.8 dBm, 18.1 dBm, 23%, and 20 dB, respectively.