A 220–275 GHz Direct-Conversion Receiver in 130-nm SiGe:C BiCMOS Technology

This letter presents a wideband 240-GHz direct-conversion receiver manufactured in a 130-nm SiGe:C BiCMOS technology with f
_T
/f
_max
=300/500 GHz. A mixer-first receiver is implemented, with a new dc offset cancellation loop architecture to compensate for the mixer dc offsets and biasing purposes. A transimpedance amplifier is utilized as a load for the mixer, optimized with the dc offset cancellation loop to maximize the bandwidth. A local oscillator (LO) chain that multiplies by 8 a 30-GHz input signal drives the mixer. The proposed receiver achieves the widest 3-dB bandwidth among the published works of 55 GHz, with a conversion gain of 13 dB. The measured average single-sideband noise figure is 18 dB. It dissipates 500 mW, while occupying 1.25 mm
²
, requiring LO input signal of only -10 dBm.