Gain bandwidth considerations in fully integrated distributed amplifiers implemented in silicon

Author

Amaya, Rony E. ; Aguirre, Jorge ; Plett, Calvin

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electron., Carleton Univ., Ottawa, Ont., Canada

Volume

4

fYear

2004

fDate

23-26 May 2004

Abstract

A study of the gain and bandwidth limitations of a distributed amplifier implemented in silicon substrates is presented. It was found that the gain bandwidth product is limited to approximately 55% of the f_max of the gain stage used. This study considered three commonly used gain stages in a distributed amplifier: single device, cascode and Darlington f_T doubler. A limit on the bandwidth for the distributed amplifier is presented as a function of the choice of gain cell, quality of the passives, and the number of stages used. Gain and matching considerations are also presented. Measurements of three distributed amplifiers verify the simulation results.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; III-V semiconductors; Q-factor; distributed amplifiers; gallium arsenide; transmission line theory; Darlington doubler; GaAs; Si; cascode; gain bandwidth; integrated distributed amplifiers; silicon substrate; single device; Bandwidth; Design automation; Distributed amplifiers; Distributed parameter circuits; III-V semiconductor materials; Impedance; Inductors; Performance gain; Power transmission lines; Silicon;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Circuits and Systems, 2004. ISCAS '04. Proceedings of the 2004 International Symposium on

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8251-X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ISCAS.2004.1328993

Filename

1328993