Compact High-Gain Driver Amplifier MMICs for 60 nm GaN-on-Si W-Band Single-Chip Transceivers

This paper presents compact W-band driver amplifier (DA) MMICs fabricated in a 60 nm GaN-on-Si process. The measured small-signal gain of single-stage, 4-stage and 6-stage DA circuits is equal to 1.9-4.3 dB, 10.7-17.5 dB and 14.0-25.1 dB at 77.5-100 GHz when the drain voltage $(\mathbf{V}_{\mathbf{d}})$ is 7.5 V and the drain current $(\mathbf{I}_{\mathbf{d}})$ is equal to 40/140/230 mA. The 6-stage DA circuit has a measured output power of 10.9-17.2 dBm with 8.5-16.0 dB of power gain at 77.5-100 GHz when $\mathbf{V}_{\mathbf{d}}=10$ V and $\mathbf{I}_{\mathbf{d}}=230$ mA. The multi-stage DAs have attractive features such as small circuit sizes $(1.6-2.2\ \text{mm}^{2})$ and high gain in a wide frequency range at W-band. The 6-stage driver amplifier can be a more area-efficient option in 60 nm GaN-on-Si W-band single-chip transceivers or transmitters due to its compact size, comparably high gain and output power in a relatively wide bandwidth.