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10 to 40 GHz Superheterodyne Receiver Frontend in 0.13 µm SiGe BiCMOS Technology

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Published/Copyright: December 14, 2016
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Abstract

A fully integrated 10–40 GHz superheterodyne receiver frontend using a 40–46 GHz IF is presented. The frontend consists of a differential low noise amplifier, a fully differential mixer, a single-ended frequency quadrupler and a transformer-based balun followed by an amplifier to convert the quadrupler’s single-ended output to a differential signal to drive the LO port of the mixer. The circuit is designed and fabricated in a 250 GHz fT SiGe BiCMOS technology. The chip was characterized on-wafer single-endedly. The frontend achieves a differential conversion gain of 17–20 dB and an input-referred 1 dB compression point of –16 to –20 dBm across the desired IF bandwidth.

Keywords: LNAs; mixers; receivers; SiGe

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank IHP Frankfurt (Oder) for fabricating the chip and Sven Hettich (Ulm University) for his assistance in measuring the chip.

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Received: 2016-7-2
Published Online: 2016-12-14
Published in Print: 2017-3-1

©2017 by De Gruyter

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