Low power 23-GHz and 27-GHz distributed cascode amplifiers in a standard 130nm SOI CMOS process

Abstract

Two fully integrated distributed amplifiers (DA) were designed using a standard 130 nm partially-depleted silicon-on-insulator CMOS process. They make use of either body-contacted (BC) or floating-body (FB) MOSFETs, and microstrip lines. The BC-DA has a 5.4 dB gain and a unity-gain bandwidth of 23 GHz whereas the FB-DA has a 6.8 dB gain and a unity-gain bandwidth of 27 GHz. The measured output power at 1 dB compression is 5 dBm at 5 GHz and the noise figure is 6.5-7.5 dB over 6-18 GHz for both DAs. Power consumption is 58 mW at 1.4 V.