34-42GHz CMOS Transceiver Frontend for Versatile Arrays

In this work a Ka-Band transceiver is presented in low cost 130nm CMOS. The front end consists of PA, LNA and SPDT. The PA is 3-stage differential cascode with capacitive cross coupling. The LNA starts with a single ended common source followed by 2 differential stages with RC feedback to extend bandwidth. The SPDT has parallel configuration with digital control. The PA has Psat of 17dBm with a small signal gain of 21dB. The LNA has a small signal gain of 24dB with a measured NF of 5.5dB. The SPDT has insertion loss of 2dB. The Rx has an IP1 of −18dBm with a small signal gain of 20dB. The power supply for the Tx/Rx is 2.6/2.4 V. The Tx draws 533mW with a max PAE of 14% from a 2.6 V supply. The Rx draws 103mW from a 2.4 V supply. The whole transceiver has a bandwidth of 9GHz. The chip area is 1.5mm2 including pads.