• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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• v.43 no.10 s.352
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• pp.90-97
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• 2006

We report our research work on the millimeter-wave broadband amplifier integrating the shunt peaking technology with the cascode configuration. The millimeter-wave broadband cascode amplifier on MIMIC technology was designed and fabricated using $0.1{\mu}m\;{\Gamma}-gate$ GaAs PHEMT, CPW, and passive library. The fabricated PHEMT has shown a transconductance of 346.3 mS/mm, a current gain cut off frequency ($f_T$) of 113 GHz, and a maximum oscillation frequency ($f_{max}$) of 180 GHz. To prevent oscillation of designed cascode amplifier, a parallel resistor and capacitor were connected to drain of common-gate device. For expansion of the bandwidth and flatness of the gain, we inserted the short stub into bias circuits and the compensation transmission line between common-source device and common-gate device, and then their lengths were optimized. Also, the input and output stages were designed using the matching method to obtain the broadband characteristic. From the measurement, we could confirm to extend bandwidth and flat gain by integrating the shunt peaking technology with the cascode configuration. The cascode amplifier shows the broadband characteristic from 19 GHz to 53.5 GHz. Also, the average gain of this amplifier is about 6.5 dB over the bandwidth.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.44 no.9
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• pp.18-24
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• 2007

We report broadband cascode amplifiers of a single-ended and a balanced amplifier for the millimeter-wave applications. The amplifiers were fabricated using 0.1 ${\mu}m\;{\Gamma}-gate$ PHEMT technology on GaAs substrate. The single-ended cascode amplifier was designed and fabricated by using shunt peaking technology. The fabricated single-ended cascode amplifier shows 3 dB bandwidth of 37 GHz($18.5{\sim}55.5$ GHz) and the maximum $S_{21}$ gain of 9.38 dB. The balanced cascode amplifier using tandem couplers achieves 3 dB bandwidth and the maximum $S_{21}$ gain of 44.5 GHz($21{\sim}65.5$ GHz) and 10.4 dB at 60 GHz, respectively. The 3 dB bandwidth of the balanced cascode amplifier shows 20% lager than the single-ended cascode amplifier.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.158-160
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• 2008

A highly linear and efficient GaN HEMT Doherty amplifier for wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) repeaters is presented. For better performance, the adaptive gate bias control of the peaking amplifier using the power tracking circuit and the shunt capacitors is employed. The measured one-carrier WCDMA results show an adjacent channel leakage ratio of -43.2 dBc at ${\pm}2.5$-MHz offset with a power added efficiency of 40.1% at an average output power of 37 dBm, which is a 7.5 dB back-off power from the saturated output power.

• Journal of electromagnetic engineering and science
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.91-95
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• 2008

This paper presents a direct-conversion I/Q up-mixer block, which supports $3{\sim}5$ GHz ultra-wideband(UWB) applications. It consists of a VI converter, a double-balanced mixer, a RF amplifier, and a differential-to-single signal converter. To achieve wideband characteristics over $3{\sim}5$ GHz frequency range, the double-balanced mixer adopts a shunt-peaking load. The proposed RF amplifier can suppress unwanted common-mode input signals with high linearity. The proposed direct-conversion I/Q up-mixer block is implemented using $0.18-{\mu}m$ CMOS technology. The measured results for three channels show a power gain of $-2{\sim}-9$ dB with a gain flatness of 1dB, a maximum output power level of $-7{\sim}-14.5$ dBm, and a output return loss of more than - 8.8 dB. The current consumption of the fabricated chip is 25.2 mA from a 1.8 V power supply.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.100-108
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• 2014

Low noise amplifier (LNA) is an integral component of RF receiver and frequently required to operate at wide frequency bands for various wireless system applications. For wideband operation, important performance metrics such as voltage gain, return loss, noise figure and linearity have been carefully investigated and characterized for the proposed LNA. An inductive shunt feedback configuration is successfully employed in the input stage of the proposed LNA which incorporates cascaded networks with a peaking inductor in the buffer stage. Design equations for obtaining low and high impedance-matching frequencies are easily derived, leading to a relatively simple method for circuit implementation. Careful theoretical analysis explains that input impedance can be described in the form of second-order frequency response, where poles and zeros are characterized and utilized for realizing the wideband response. Linearity is significantly improved because the inductor located between the gate and the drain decreases the third-order harmonics at the output. Fabricated in $0.18{\mu}m$ CMOS process, the chip area of this wideband LNA is $0.202mm^2$, including pads. Measurement results illustrate that the input return loss shows less than -7 dB, voltage gain greater than 8 dB, and a little high noise figure around 6-8 dB over 1.5 - 13 GHz. In addition, good linearity (IIP3) of 2.5 dBm is achieved at 8 GHz and 14 mA of current is consumed from a 1.8 V supply.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.443-450
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• 2014

This paper presents a 20-Gb/s optical receiver circuit fabricated with standard 65-nm CMOS technology. Our receiver circuits are designed with consideration for parasitic inductance and capacitance due to bonding wires connecting the photodetector and the circuit realized separately. Such parasitic inductance and capacitance usually disturb the high-speed performance but, with careful circuit design, we achieve optimized wide and flat response. The receiver circuit is composed of a transimpedance amplifier (TIA) with a DC-balancing buffer, a post amplifier (PA), and an output buffer. The TIA is designed in the shunt-feedback configuration with inductive peaking. The PA is composed of a 6-stage differential amplifier having interleaved active feedback. The receiver circuit is mounted on a FR4 PCB and wire-bonded to an equivalent circuit that emulates a photodetector. The measured transimpedance gain and 3-dB bandwidth of our optical receiver circuit is 84 $dB{\Omega}$ and 12 GHz, respectively. 20-Gb/s $2^{31}-1$ electrical pseudo-random bit sequence data are successfully received with the bit-error rate less than $10^{-12}$. The receiver circuit has chip area of $0.5mm{\times}0.44mm$ and it consumes excluding the output buffer 84 mW with 1.2-V supply voltage.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.43 no.10 s.352
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• pp.1-9
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• 2006

In this paper, a couple of 10Gb/s transimpedance amplifiers are realized in a 0.18um standard CMOS technology for optical communication applications. First, the voltage-mode inverter TIA(I-TIA) exploits inverter input configuration to achieve larger effective gm, thus reducing the input impedance and increasing the bandwidth. I-TIA demonstrates $56dB{\Omega}$ transimpedance gain, 14GHz bandwidth for 0.25pF photodiode capacitance, and -16.5dBm optical sensitivity for 0.5A/W responsivity, 9dB extinction ration and $10^{-12}$ BER. However, both its inherent parasitic capacitance and the package parasitics deteriorate the bandwidth significantly, thus mandating very judicious circuit design. Meanwhile, the current-mode RGC TIA incorporates the regulated cascade input configuration, and thus isolates the large input parasitic capacitance from the bandwidth determination more effectively than the voltage-mode TIA. Also, the parasitic components give much less impact on its bandwidth. RGC TIA provides $60dB{\Omega}$ transimpedance gain, 10GHz bandwidth for 0.25pF photodiode capacitance, and -15.7dBm optical sensitivity for 0.5A/W responsivity, 9dB extinction ration and $10^{-12}$ BER. Main drawback is the power dissipation which is 4.5 times larger than the I-TIA.