ESD-Protected 24 GHz LNA for Radar Applications in SiGe:C Technology

This paper presents an ESD-protected 24 GHz single-stage differential cascode LNA in Inflneon's B7HF200 SiGe technology. It is designed to fulfill high robustness requirements for industrial or automotive applications. Performance variation of key parameters has been analyzed in measurement over a wide range of temperatures from - 25degC to 125degC. The amplifier offers a gain of 12 dB and noise figure of 3.1 dB at the center frequency of 24 GHz. The circuit exhibits high linearity of -8.7 dBm and -1.8 dBm input-referred ldB compression point and IIP3, respectively. The LNA consumes 12.6 mA from a single 3.3 V supply. The ESD hardness has been investigated using a Transmission Line Pulse (TLP) system. The circuit exhibits minimum 1.3 A failure current on the RF pins, which corresponds to HBM protection above 1.5 kV. The chip size including the pads is 0.32 mm
²
.