96 GHz 4.7 mW low‐power frequency tripler with 0.5 V supply voltage

Abstract

Using forward-biased base–collector voltage (VBC) in high-speed circuits is usually not attractive due to the performance degradation compared with biasing heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) in the forward-active region. However, the use of ultra-low supply voltage in millimetre-wave circuits provides an interesting application scenario not only for demonstrating the potential of modern silicon germanium (SiGe) HBT technologies in implementing severely power-constrained wireless circuits on silicon but also for verifying the accuracy of compact models beyond standard characteristics typically measured by foundries. The results of a 96 GHz frequency tripler deliberately designed with a reduced supply voltage (0.5 V) in a 130 nm SiGe HBT technology are presented. With only 4.7 mW DC power consumption, this frequency tripler achieves a conversion loss of 3.8 dB, generating a 96 GHz output signal with only −10 dBm input signal at 32 GHz. The impact of transistor series resistances on the tripler performance is also analysed.