A 28 GHz Superregenerative Amplifier for FMCW Radar Reflector Applications in 45 nm SOI CMOS

This paper presents the design and characterization of a 28GHz integrated super-regenerative amplifier (SRA) in a 45 nm silicon on insulator (SOI) technology. The circuit is based on a complementary cross-coupled oscillator topology. The fabricated integrated circuit (IC) occupies an area of 0.67 mm
²
, and operates in a frequency range from 28.07GHz to 29.35 GHz. Characterization results show the minimum input sensitivity of the circuit, as -85 dBm and the input power level corresponding to the linear to logarithmic mode transition as -66.3 dBm. The measured output power delivered into a 100 Ω differential load is 1.1 dBm. The DC power consumption of the circuit is 10.6 mW. To the knowledge of the authors, the circuit has the best reported combined sensitivity and output power for an FMCW radar reflector implementation in CMOS.