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This paper presents an overview of the various failure mechanisms observed when a SiGe HBT is operated outside of traditionally-defined electrothermal safe operating areas (SOAs). The concepts of hard and soft safe operating area (SOA) boundaries are defined in this work. This provides two different viewpoints which determine the degradation and failure of a SiGe HBT as a function of bias conditions...
This paper presents the design, optimization, and characterization of a square-law power detector for heterodyne millimeter-wave radiometers implemented using 0.13 μm SiGe HBTs. A 3-dB bandwidth of 19–34 GHz (56% fractional bandwidth) is obtained through the use of inductively degenerated SiGe HBTs with large emitter lengths. The detector achieves a minimum noise-equivalent power (NEP) of 0.49 pW/VHz...
MicroNimbus is a 3U CubeSat spacecraft that uses a single-chip SiGe 60 GHz radiometer to measure the temperature profile of the Earth's atmosphere. Due to the characteristics of oxygen absorption around 60 GHz, by choosing different center frequencies and bandwidths, the radiometer can measure the temperature of the atmosphere at different altitudes, giving the temperature profile. The temperature...
This paper presents a highly efficient X-band inverse class-F SiGe HBT cascode power amplifier (PA) to overcome performance limitations imposed by device breakdown. Simultaneous fundamental and 2nd/3rd harmonic matching is achieved using an output transformer with an embedded capacitor at its center-tap, which enables inverse class-F operation. Use of a cascode topology with a low base impedance termination...
This paper presents an X-band 6-bit phase shifter using active bi-directional double-pole, double-throw (DPDT) switches. The phase shifter is implemented in a 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS technology. Three additional tuning bits are included in the design to achieve accurate phase shifting performance. The phase shifter demonstrates a > 11.5-dB gain in both directions of operation over the 8–12 GHz frequency...
This paper reviews recent work aimed at a comprehensive assessment of the potential of SiGe technology to support emerging millimeter-wave (mm-wave) and sub-mm-wave integrated circuit applications. Scaling limits, reliability constraints, and the limits of CMOS for mm-wave are addressed, followed by a diverse variety of mm-wave and sub-mm-wave SiGe circuits that are offered as examples of the many...
SiGe HBT technology has enjoyed substantial success over the past 25 years for use in realizing performance-constrained, highly-integrated mixed-signal electronics spanning the range of DC to sub-mm-wave operational frequencies. This success has been bolstered by advances in device scaling which have been truly impressive, now routinely achieving multi-hundred GHz frequencies, a fact which is currently...
The implementation of a “superjunction” collector design in a silicon-germanium heterojunction bipolar transistor is explored for enhancing breakdown performance. The superjunction collector is formed through the placement of a series of alternating pn-junction layers in the collector-base space charge region to modify the carrier energy profile and reduce avalanche generation. An overview of the...
High-current pulsed stress measurements are performed on SiGe HBTs to characterize the damage behavior and create a comprehensive physics-based TCAD damage model for Auger-induced hot-carrier damage. The Auger hot-carrier generation is decoupled from classical mixed-mode damage and annealing on the output plane by using pulsed stress conditions to modulate the self-heating within the device under...
A 6-bit active bi-directional silicon-germanium (SiGe) digital step attenuator (DSA) with multi-octave bandwidth using an active double-pole double-throw (DPDT) switch is demonstrated. To compensate the insertion loss (IL) and frequency dependent loss characteristics of conventional passive attenuators without using any additional amplifier and equalizer, the proposed attenuator employs active DPDT...
The propagation of single-event transient (SET) signals in a silicon-germanium (SiGe) direct-conversion receiver is studied. A theoretical analysis of transient propagation, verified by simulation, is presented. A new method to characterize and quantify the impact of SETs in communication systems carrying modulated data is proposed. The proposed method suggests examining distortions in the signal...
The effects of ionizing radiation on the single-event transient (SET) response of devices in a silicon-germanium (SiGe) bipolar and complementary metal oxide semiconductor (BiCMOS) platform is examined for the first time. Pulsed-laser measurements are leveraged to analyze the transient response of both npn SiGe HBT and nFET device structures after exposure to 10 keV X-rays. Measured data and simulations...
An active bi-directional power dividier/combiner circuit based on a distributed topology is proposed. The use of bi-directional amplifiers (BDAs) provides both dividing and combining functions within the same circuit. By utilizing a distributed topology composed of BDAs and artificial transmission lines, a wide operational bandwidth (2–22 GHz) and a large, flat power gain (9 dB) were achieved under...
This work proposes an asymmetric SPDT transmit/receive (T/R) switch co-optimized with a low-noise amplifier (LNA) tailored to X-band operation and implemented in an 0.13 µm silicon-germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS technology. The switch achieves very high power handling capability in transmit mode, while maintaining low insertion loss, by utilizing an asymmetric topology. In receive mode, low noise is obtained...
This paper presents a 138–170 GHz active frequency doubler implemented in a 0.13 µm SiGe BiCMOS technology with a peak output power of 5.6 dBm and peak power-added efficiency of 7.6%. The doubler achieves a peak conversion gain of 4.9 dB and consumes only 36 mW of DC power at peak drive through the use of a push-push frequency doubling stage optimized for low drive power, along with a low-power output...
Profile optimization techniques are investigated for silicon-germanium heterojunction bipolar transistors (SiGe HBTs) intended for inverse-mode (IM) operation. IM device operation, also known as inverse active, involves electrically swapping the emitter and collector terminals and has been shown to improve the radiation tolerance of SiGe HBTs to single event transients (SETs). Multiple profile design...
For the first time, the high temperature (to 300°C) DC and AC performance of a > 100 GHz fT/fmax SiGe HBTs on thick-film SOI are investigated for their potential use in emerging energy sector, automotive, and aerospace applications. Metrics such as current gain (βF), BVCEO, M-1, fT, fmax are extracted from 24°C to 300°C and compared with a bulk SiGe HBT platform. The results demonstrate that while...
This paper presents a front-end switch that integrates the ability to provide both loop-back testing and transmit-receive operation. In addition, power detectors are integrated with capacitive couplers to sense the power levels at the transmitter output and the receiver input. The measured results show the power detectors have constant responsivity and can predict the power level within 0.5 dB. These...
In this work, the authors present high performance W-band building blocks in an 0.13µm SiGe HBT technology. A single-pole double-throw switch is presented utilizing reverse-saturated HBTs, with a measured insertion loss of 2 dB and an isolation of 27 dB at 94 GHz, demonstrating state-of-the-art performance. The LNA provides a gain of 20 dB and a noise figure of 4.2 dB. An integrated version is presented...
Two compact, low-power, SiGe W-band LNAs are demonstrated, one single-ended (SE), and one differential (Diff) with an integrated input transformer balun. The LNAs are implemented in an advanced 90-nm SiGe BiCMOS technology, with fT/fmax of 300/350 GHz. The noise figure (NF) of the SE and Diff LNAs are measured to be 4.2 dB and 6.3 dB, respectively, at 94 GHz, while dissipating only 8.8 mW SE from...
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