ESD-Protected 24 GHz LNA for Radar Applications in SiGe:C Technology

This paper presents an ESD-protected 24 GHz single-stage differential cascode LNA in Inflneon´s B7HF200 SiGe technology. It is designed to fulfill high robustness requirements for industrial or automotive applications. Performance variation of key parameters has been analyzed in measurement over a wide range of temperatures from - 25degC to 125degC. The amplifier offers a gain of 12 dB and noise figure of 3.1 dB at the center frequency of 24 GHz. The circuit exhibits high linearity of -8.7 dBm and -1.8 dBm input-referred ldB compression point and IIP3, respectively. The LNA consumes 12.6 mA from a single 3.3 V supply. The ESD hardness has been investigated using a Transmission Line Pulse (TLP) system. The circuit exhibits minimum 1.3 A failure current on the RF pins, which corresponds to HBM protection above 1.5 kV. The chip size including the pads is 0.32 mm².