23 GHz LNA with 1.5 V × 1 mA supply in low-fT SiGe technology

A 23 GHz low noise amplifier using silicon germanium heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) is presented in this paper. It is demonstrated that low power consuming low noise amplifiers (LNAs) operating above 20 GHz can be designed with a low cost 60-GHz-f_T BiCMOS technology. The fully integrated circuit has a die area of only 0.46 mm². At 50 Omega terminations, a power gain of |S₂₁| = 9.3 dB, a noise figure of NF = 4.3 dB, and an input-referred 1-dBcompression point of P_{-1 dB} = -18.9 dBm are measured. The complete circuit consumes only 1.5 mW power with a supply voltage of 1.5 V and has to the authorpsilas knowledge the highest figure of merit reported to date.