Wideband Variable Gain Amplifier for D-band Backhaul Transceiver in 55nm BiCMOS Technology

This paper presents a Variable Gain Amplifier (VGA) for D-band (130-175) GHz backhaul transceiver using 55nm BiCMOS Technology. It includes a linear-in-dB control circuit to achieve a dB-linear gain that can be steered by a single analog voltage. A 6 dB gain with a control range of over 20 dB, and an input power at -1dB compression better than -10 dBm have been achieved over the full D-band and gain range. The input and output return loss are both greater than 7 dB. This circuit has been designed to be a building block in our future transmitter and receiver chips for a phased array antenna in D-band.