Design of a 0.18-µm BiCMOS PA with concurrent and non-concurrent operations in 10–19, 23–29 and 33–40 GHz bands

A tri-band power amplifier (PA), that can operate concurrently or non-concurrently in Ku-, K-, and Ka-band, is designed using a 0.18-µm SiGe BiCMOS process. The tri-band PA is based on the distributed amplifier structure, which incorporates negative-resistance active notch filters for improved tri-band gain response. It exhibits measured small-signal gain around 15.4, 14.7, and 12.3 dB in the low-band (10–19 GHz), mid-band (23–29 GHz), and high-band (33–40 GHz), respectively. It can work in single-, dual-, and tri-band modes. In the tri-band mode, it exhibits measured 8.8/5.4/3.8 dBm maximum output power at 15/25/35 GHz. The tri-band PA has relatively flat responses in gain and output power across three different frequency bands, and good matching up to 40 GHz.