10 to 40 GHz superheterodyne receiver frontend in 0.13 µm SiGe BiCMOS technology

A fully integrated 10-40 GHz superheterodyne receiver frontend using a 40-46 GHz IF is presented. The frontend consists of a differential low noise amplifier, a fully differential mixer, a single-ended frequency quadrupler and a transformer-based balun followed by an amplifier to convert the quadrupler's single-ended output to a differential signal to drive the LO port of the mixer. The circuit is designed and fabricated in a 250 GHz f
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SiGe BiCMOS technology. The chip was characterized on-wafer single-endedly. The frontend achieves a differential conversion gain of 17 to 20 dB and an input-referred 1 dB compression point of -16 to -20 dBm across the desired IF bandwidth.