X-to-K Band 6-bit Bidirectional Common Chain SiGe BiCMOS for Multi-Band Arrays

In this work, an 8-to-24 GHz 6-bit bidirectional Common-Chain (CC) is presented that enables low noise, wide bandwidth (BW) compact core-chip in SiGe BiCMOS with low power dissipation. The chain contains phase shifter (PS), attenuator and HBT based active bidirectional amplifiers (BDAs). The PS is designed considering multiple resonance frequencies for an improved BW. The attenuator’s device sizes are determined for low phase variation. The loss of these blocks are tolerated by BDAs, which are also utilized to generate new LSBs for phase and amplitude control. The CC succeeds 16.12 dB peak gain at 21.5 GHz and + 2.58dB/BW of a gain slope. It achieves a mean 4.41°/0.4dB RMS errors for 16 GHz of BW, while dissipating 55 mW of power in a 3.28 mm
²
area. To the best of authors’ knowledge, this work succeeds the best gain, noise, resolution, and SWaP-C features for 100% of fractional BW in SiGe BiCMOS.