A 21 dBm 60 GHz SiGe power amplifier using modified Wilkinson combiner

This paper presents a fully integrated 60 GHz power amplifiers (PA) fabricated in a 0.12 μm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The PA employs five common-emitter stages with on-chip power combining to achieve power gain of 27.5 dB, 19.2 dBm output power at 1dB compression, and saturated power of 21.3 dBm. The modified Wilkinson combiner that is used shows 0.5 dB insertion loss. Small signal characteristics of the amplifier show peak gain at 61 GHz with 3 dB bandwidth of 14 GHz (23%). The PA's bias is applied using digitally adjustable bias circuits and it consumes quiescent currents of 210 mA from a 2 V supply and 340 mA at 1 dB compression.