A Low-Power 42 to 67 GHz Variable-Gain LNA in 22FDX® on Standard- and High-Resistivity Substrates with 3.4 dB Noise Figure

This paper describes the design and implementation of a 42-67 GHz LNA using GlobalFoundries’ 22 nm FD-SOI technology, that was fabricated on standard-resistivity as well as on high-resistivity substrate wafers. On the conventional standard-resistivity substrate, the proposed design achieves 3.8 dB of minimal noise-figure for a peak gain of 21.0 dB at its nominal bias under 13.7 mW of power-consumption. The LNA makes use of the unique back-gate bias node of the 22FDX® technology to offer 10 dB of gain-control over a 2 V bias range at the back-gates, and takes up an area of 0.17 mm². On the high-resistivity silicon substrate, improvements of 0.9 dB in gain and 0.4 dB in noise-figure are achieved for this LNA, and these improvements are attributed to the increased quality factors of the integrated spiral inductors present in the design.