A Highly Efficient 240-GHz Power Amplifier in 0.13-μm SiGe

This letter presents the design and experimental characterization of a highly efficient WR3.4-band power amplifier (PA) using 0.13-
$\mu \text{m}$
SiGe technology. The realized differential cascode PA demonstrates a high efficiency, owing to the gm-boosting technique which enables a relatively higher small-signal gain per stage. The proposed PA exhibits a saturated output power of 10.48 dBm with a maximum power-added-efficiency (PAE) of 5.46% at 240 GHz, which is a leading-edge performance among the reported silicon (Si)-based WR3.4-band PAs. The small-signal gain peaks at 24.1 dB and the PA has a 3-dB bandwidth of 21 GHz.