A 90 nm CMOS V-Band Low-Noise Active Balun With Broadband Phase-Correction Technique

Abstract

This paper presents a V-band low-noise active balun with broadband phase-correction technique (PCT). The proposed technique effectively mitigates the phase deviation of active balun caused by parasitic imbalance and circuit mismatch. This technique is insensitive to frequency, which makes the operation frequency of active balun with the PCT can be extended to millimeter-wave (MMW) band. Within the low noise current-reuse pre-amplifier, this active balun circuit can be employed as low-noise amplifier as well. The measured phase error keeps less than 10 degrees from 50 GHz to 67 GHz, which demonstrates the robust calibration of phase error at MMW frequency. The measured voltage gain and noise figure at 63 GHz are 17.6 dB and 8.6 dB, respectively. The core power consumption is 19 mW from 1.4 V supply voltage with a core area of 0.275 mm2.