A 29–37 GHz BiCMOS Low-Noise Amplifier with 28.5 dB Peak Gain and 3.1-4.1 dB NF

This paper presents a 28.5 dB high-gain Ka-band low-noise amplifier (LNA) in a 0.25 µm SiGe:C BiCMOS technology. To achieve wide band (fractional bandwidth > 25^%) simultaneous noise and power matching with compact size, a 3-winding transformer based dualtank matching technique is proposed and implemented for the input matching. The LNA provides 28.5 dB peak gain at 32 GHz with a 3-dB gain bandwidth from 29 to 37 GHz. Within this bandwidth, it also achieves simultaneously low-noise (3.1-4.1 dB) and power matching (S11 < −10 dB). The measured input IP3 and P1dB at 32 GHz are −12.5 dBm and - 22.0 dBm, respectively, and the total DC power consumption is 80 mW.