A 232–282 GHz Frequency Quadrupler in 130-nm SiGe HBT SG13G3Cu Technology

A 232–282 frequency quadrupler has been designed and fabricated using Leibniz Institute for High Performance Microelectronics (IHP’s) highest performance 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS technology, featuring $f_{T}$ / $f_{\text {MAX}}$ values of 470/650 GHz. It consists of stacked Gilbert-cell (GC) doublers, with neutralization capacitances in the transconductance pair to enhance conversion gain (CG), and a miniaturized balun structure for the low frequency differential input signal generation. The frequency quadrupler achieves a peak output power of –4.5dBm, corresponding to a 3.5 dB CG at 236 GHz, with a 0.56% dc-to-RF efficiency and a 3 dB bandwidth of 50 GHz ranging from 232 to 282 GHz. This performance is realized with a dc power consumption of only 63 mW and a chip area of 0.49 mm².