© The Institution of Engineering and Technology
Using forward-biased base–collector voltage (V BC) in high-speed circuits is usually not attractive due to the performance degradation compared with biasing heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) in the forward-active region. However, the use of ultra-low supply voltage in millimetre-wave circuits provides an interesting application scenario not only for demonstrating the potential of modern silicon germanium (SiGe) HBT technologies in implementing severely power-constrained wireless circuits on silicon but also for verifying the accuracy of compact models beyond standard characteristics typically measured by foundries. The results of a 96 GHz frequency tripler deliberately designed with a reduced supply voltage (0.5 V) in a 130 nm SiGe HBT technology are presented. With only 4.7 mW DC power consumption, this frequency tripler achieves a conversion loss of 3.8 dB, generating a 96 GHz output signal with only −10 dBm input signal at 32 GHz. The impact of transistor series resistances on the tripler performance is also analysed.
References
-
-
1)
-
1. Schröter, M., Chakravorty, A.: ‘Compact hierarchical bipolar transistor modeling with HICUM’ (World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., Singapore, 2010).
-
2)
-
8. Huang, H.T., Wu, M.H., Lin, Y.H., et al: ‘A 3.7 mW 75–87-GHz injection-locked frequency tripler using bandwidth-enhanced transformer-coupled topology for automatic radar applications’. European Microwave Conf. (EuMC), Paris, France, September 2015, pp. 399–402, .
-
3)
-
4. Agarwal, P., Sah, S.P., Heo, D.: ‘A 4.8 m W, 4.4 dB NF, wideband LNA using positively coupled transformer for V-band applications’. IEEE Int. Microwave Symp. Digest, Tampa, FL, USA, June 2014, pp. 1–3, .
-
4)
-
7. Yeh, Y.-L., Chang, H.-Y.: ‘A W-band wide locking range and low DC power injection-locked frequency tripler using transformer coupled technique’, Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., 2013, 61, (2), pp. 860–870 (doi: 10.1109/TMTT.2012.2235854).
-
5)
-
3. Inanlou, F., Coen, C.T., Cressler, J.D.: ‘A 1.0 V, 10-22 GHz, 4 mW LNA utilizing weakly saturated SiGe HBTs for singlechip, low power, remote sensing applications’, Microw. Wirel. Compon. Lett., 2014, 24, (12), pp. 890–892 (doi: 10.1109/LMWC.2014.2361662).
-
6)
-
5. Heinemann, B., Barth, R., Bolze, D.: ‘SiGe HBT technology with fT/fmax of 300 GHz/500 GHz and 2.0 ps CML gate delay’. Int. Electron Devices Meeting, San Francisco, CA, USA, December 2010, pp. 30.5.1–30.5.4, .
-
7)
-
6. Vishnipolsky, A., Socher, E.: ‘F-band injection locked tripler based on Colpitts oscillator’. IEEE 12th Topical Meeting on Silicon Monolithic Integrated Circuits in RF Systems (SiRF), Santa Clara, CA, USA, January 2012, pp. 13–16, .
-
8)
-
2. Seth, S., Poh, C.H.J., Thrivikraman, T., et al: ‘Using saturated SiGe HBTs to realize ultra-low voltage/power X-band low noise amplifiers’. IEEE Bipolar/BiCMOS Circuits and Technology Meeting, Atlanta, GA, USA, October 2011, pp. 103–106, .
http://iet.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1049/el.2017.2523
Related content
content/journals/10.1049/el.2017.2523
pub_keyword,iet_inspecKeyword,pub_concept
6
6