A Full Ka-Band CMOS Amplifier Using Inductive Neutralization with a Flat Gain of 13 ± 0.2 dB

Abstract

This paper presents a CMOS wideband amplifier operating in the full Ka-band, with a low gain variation. An inductive neutralization is applied to the amplifier to compensate for the gain roll-off in the high-frequency region. Neutralization inductance is carefully determined considering the tradeoff between stability and gain. To achieve a low gain variation over the full Ka-band, the amplifier employs the frequency staggering technique in which impedance matching for three gain stages is performed at different frequencies of 26, 34, and 42 GHz. The experimental results show that a peak gain of 13.2 dB is achieved at 39.2 GHz. The 3 dB bandwidth is from 23.5 to 41.7 GHz, which fully covers the Ka-band. Especially, the gain ripple of the amplifier is only 13 ± 0.2 dB over a wide bandwidth from 26.2 to 40.2 GHz. The input and output return loss values are better than −10 dB from 26.3 to 40.1 GHz and from 25.3 to 50 GHz, respectively. The DC power consumption is 18.6 mW.

Keywords

• Ka-band
• CMOS amplifier
• inductive neutralization technique
• frequency staggering technique
• wideband flat gain