170 GHz SiGe-BiCMOS Loss-Compensated Distributed Amplifier

This paper presents a travelling-wave amplifier (TWA) for wideband applications implemented in a 0.13 μm SiGe BiCMOS technology (ft = 300 GHz, fmax = 500 GHz). The gain cell employed in the TWA is designed to compensate the transmission-line- losses at high frequencies in order to extend the bandwidth as well as the gain bandwidth product (GBP). A gain of 10 dB and a 3-dB bandwidth of 170 GHz are measured for the fabricated TWA. The chip has a chip area of 0.38 mm
²
and a power consumption of 108 mW. Compared against the state of the art, the presented design achieves the highest reported GBP per area and power consumption.