D-band High Gain and Wide Bandwidth Power Amplifier Design in 65nm CMOS Adopting Dual-Peak Gmax Technique

Hyo Ryeong Jeon; Sang Gug Lee

Hyo Ryeong Jeon Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Sang Gug Lee Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Keywords: CMOS, D-band, Gain boosting, PA, Wideband

Abstract

A design of CMOS D-band high gain and wide bandwidth amplifier adopting dual-peak G_max technique is presented. The proposed amplifier applies the dual-frequency Gmax technique based on 3-embedding, which provides high gain over a wide bandwidth. By utilizing the degree of freedom of 3-embedding, we designed a core with optimal input and output impedance. After that, a D-band 3-stage power amplifier is constructed using the designed Gmax-core. When VDD=1V, the measured gain peaks 16.8 dB at 161 GHz with the 3-dB bandwidth of 18.6 GHz and the operating frequency from 150.2 GHz to 168.8 GHz. The maximum output power is 5.65 dBm at 159 GHz and shows performance ranging from 1.39 to 5.65 dBm across the entire operating frequency range. The DC power consumption is 98 mW. The total chip area of the power amplifier is 0.224 mm²

Author Biographies

Hyo Ryeong Jeon, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Hyo-ryeong Jeon received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, South Korea, in 2020 and 2022, respectively, where he is currently
pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical and electronic engineering. His current research interests include sub-THz, mm-wave, and RF-integrated circuits based on CMOS technology.

Sang Gug Lee, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Sang Gug Lee received his B.S. degree in electronic engineering from Kyungpook National University, Daegu, South Korea, in 1981, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA, in 1989 and 1992, respectively. In 1992, he joined Harris Semiconductor, Melbourne, FL, USA, where he was involved in silicon-based radio frequency (RF) integrated circuit designs. From 1995 to 1998, he was an Assistant Professor with the School of Computer and Electrical Engineering, Handong University, Pohang, South Korea. From 1998 to 2009, he was a Professor with the Information and Communications University, Daejeon, South Korea. Since 2009, he has been a Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon. He served as the Research Director for the Auto-ID Laboratory KAIST, from 2005 to 2010. In 2007, his laboratory was selected as a National Research Laboratory. Since 2012, he has been serving as the Director for the Future Promising Fusion Technology Pioneer Center, leading a research group in silicon-technology-based terahertz integrated circuit (IC) design. His current research interests include CMOS-based radio frequency (RF), analog, and mixed-mode IC designs for various radio transceiver applications, low-power transceivers, extreme high-frequency (terahertz) circuit design based on CMOS technology, and other analog integrated circuit designs such as display semiconductors, power management ICs, and automotive ICs. He has also served as a Technical Committee member for IEEE ISSCC of the Wireless Communication Technology Committee from 2005 to 2009.

Homepage : http://nice.kaist.ac.kr/

D-band High Gain and Wide Bandwidth Power Amplifier Design in 65nm CMOS Adopting Dual-Peak Gmax Technique

Abstract

Author Biographies

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