A 5.1 dBm 127-162 GHz Frequency Sextupler with Broadband Compensated Transformer-Based Baluns in 22nm FD-SOI CMOS

• Published in: 2022 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium (RFIC) pp. 315 - 318
• Main Authors: Li, Shuyang, Chen, Wenhua, Li, Xingcun, Wang, Yunfan
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 19-06-2022
• Subjects: Baluns; broadband; Broadband amplifiers; D-band; FD-SOI CMOS; Frequency conversion; frequency sextupler; Power amplifiers; Power demand; Power measurement; signal generation; Time-frequency analysis; transformer-based balun
• ISSN: 2375-0995
• DOI: 10.1109/RFIC54546.2022.9863124

This paper presents a D-band frequency sextupler in 22 nm FD-SOI CMOS. It consists of a differential frequency tripler followed by a push-push frequency doubler for six times frequency multiplication, and several differential amplifiers for enhanced conversion gain and output power. A broadband balance-compensation method is proposed for transformer-based baluns to realize wideband conversion between single-ended and balanced signals. The measured peak output power and peak efficiency are 5.1 dBm and 8.49% at 145.5 GHz, respectively. The fabricated frequency sextupler features a 3-dB output power bandwidth from 127 to 162 GHz and low DC power consumption less than 50 m W from 0.8 V power supply.