A D-band SiGe Power Amplifier Using a 4-way Coupled Line Wilkinson Combiner

Abstract

This paper presents a 4-way power-combined D-band SiGe power amplifier (PA) which simultaneously achieves high output power and high efficiency. A 4-to-1 planar coupled-line Wilkinson combiner is used, which has low loss and provides broadband impedance transformation. The PA is designed in a 90-nm SiGe BiCMOS technology platform and operates over a bandwidth of 110-145 GHz, with 18.2 dB of gain. The design achieves a peak output power of 21.9 dBm at 130 GHz, with a power-added efficiency (PAE) of 12.5 %. The PA maintains greater than 20 dBm output power with greater than 8.7 % PAE, from 115-140 GHz. This work demonstrates the first silicon-based D-Band PA which simultaneously achieves greater than 20 dBm output power and 10 % PAE.