A 154–165 GHz LNA and receiver in CMOS 65 nm technology

This paper presents a fully differential G-band receiver design in CMOS 65 nm technology. First a low noise amplifier (LNA) was designed using neutralized, cross-coupled common source (CC CS) differential pair topology. The measured peak power gain was 36 dB and the minimum noise figure (NF) was 8.3 dB at around 158 GHz. These are the best gain and NF results in CMOS beyond 110 GHz. With exceptionally low DC power consumption of 34.8 mW, this LNA achieves a record gain efficiency of 1.03 dB/mW compared to any integrated circuit technology at this band. Due to the excellent performance of the LNA, a highly sensitive low noise G band receiver was also designed by adding a single transistor passive mixer at the LNA output. The measured receiver conversion gain was up to 20 dB at 158 GHz and the minimum NF was 8 dB. To the best knowledge of the authors, these are the best results in CMOS receivers beyond 110 GHz.