A 77‐GHz PA with ground‐plane parasitic cancellation in a SiGe HBT BiCMOS technology

This letter presents a 77‐GHz power amplifier implemented in a SiGe BiCMOS technology featuring bipolar transistors with 160/175‐GHz fT/fmax. The circuit adopts a two stage differential topology with integrated input/output matching networks. The amplifier performance is considerably improved thanks to proper input/output LC resonant networks, which cancel out the ground‐plane parasitic effect. Matching networks use stacked transformers for impedance matching, differential‐to‐single‐ended conversion, and electro‐static discharge protection. The circuit achieves a power gain of 18.5 dB, a maximum output power of 11.6 dBm, with 4.2% power‐added efficiency, and an output 1‐dB compression point of 9.3 dBm.