A SiGe-Based Quadrature D-Band Up-Converter with High Output Power

This paper presents a quadrature D-band up-converter, implemented in a 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The up-converter consists of a 90-degree hybrid coupler with broadband operation, two up-converting I/Q mixers employing double-balanced Gilbert cell architecture, and a differential power divider for LO distribution. The I/Q up-converter demonstrates remarkable performance, with a maximum conversion gain of 11.2 dB at the RF frequency of 145 GHz and IF frequency of 3 GHz when supplied with an LO power of 4.5 dBm. At the same frequency of operation, the output-referred 1-dB compression point is measured to be −5.5dBm, and the maximum output power is −2.2dBm. The proposed up-converter exhibits a wide RF bandwidth of 40 GHz. The chip consumes 22 mW from a 2.5 V supply, and the core area is only 0.15 mm
²
.