A Fully-Integrated 40-222 GHz InP HBT Distributed Amplifier

Abstract

This letter presents an ultra-wideband distributed amplifier (DA) implemented in a 250 nm InP HBT technology. Four cascode gain cells are distributed along the input and output microstrip lines to achieve wideband operation. Each cascode cell employs inductive peaking at the output to further enhance the bandwidth and to align the phase delay between the input and output lines. All dc bias components are fully integrated on-chip. The DA exhibits a measured gain of 10 dB with a 3 dB bandwidth extending from 40 to 222 GHz. The maximum output power was measured to be 6.0, 9.2, and 8.5 dBm at 60, 77, and 134 GHz, respectively, which allows the DA to also be used as a medium-power amplifier. To the authors' best knowledge, the DA achieves the highest 3 dB bandwidth of 182 GHz reported thus far, while showing low dc power consumption (105 mW) compared to other state-of-the-art DAs.