Highly-Integrated Scalable D-band Receiver Front-End Modules in a 130 nm SiGe Technology for Imaging and Radar Applications

Two highly integrated, scalable D-Band receiver front-ends based on active and passive baluns which integrate a D-Band signal generator developed in a 130 nm SiGe technology are presented. The presented circuits exhibit a wide tuning range of 19 GHz around 110 GHz and achieve high conversion gains > 20 dB and > 12 dB for the active-based an passive-based approaches correspondingly. The new chips offer robust solutions for high-gain or high-linearity receivers while showing an extremely compact form factor. Both chips show competitive performance compared with state-of-the-art solutions. Due to their highly reduced area without compromising the power consumption, they can be directly integrated into high-density sensor arrays for imaging and radar applications.