A low-power SiGe BiCMOS 190 GHz receiver with 47 dB conversion gain and 11 dB noise figure for ultra-large-bandwidth applications

This paper presents a 190-GHz direct-conversion receiver capable of supporting higher-order modulation schemes and implemented in a SiGe BiCMOS technology. The circuit consists of a low-noise amplifier, an active fundamental mixer, a LO driver, a variable-gain baseband amplifier and a totem-pole output stage. To exploit the advantages of sub-THz frequencies in terms of available bandwidth at a low DC power consumption, all circuit blocks are concurrently optimized for large bandwidth and high power-efficiency. While consuming only 122 mW of DC power, the fabricated circuit exhibits a record 3-dB RF bandwidth of 35 GHz, a maximum conversion gain of 47 dB, a maximum baseband voltage swing of more than 800 mVpp and a minimum double-sideband noise figure of 10.7 dB.