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This article presents a $W$ -band power amplifier (PA) for automotive radar applications. It was designed in a 28-nm fully depleted silicon-on-insulator CMOS technology with a transition frequency of around 270 GHz and a standard back-end-of-line. The circuit adopts a pseudo-differential topology with coupling transformers, which allow both compact matching networks and layout-optimized interstage interconnections. The power stage exploits a transformer-based folded-cascode structure that is very suitable for low-voltage mm-wave power applications. The PA is able to deliver a saturated output power as high as 13.5 dBm at 77 GHz with a power-added efficiency of 14.5%, while using a power supply as low as 1 V. The linear power gain is 26.5 dB and the current consumption is 150 mA. The PA occupies a core die size of $700\,\,\mu \text{m}\,\,\times 200\,\,\mu \text{m}$. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the effect of a metal patterned ground shield (PGS) on the performance of monolithic inductors is investigated. To this aim, three spiral inductors integrated in a 28‐nm fully depleted (FD) silicon‐on‐insulator (SOI) CMOS technology are analyzed by means of a 3‐D FEM‐based commercial software. The inductors have been designed at different operating frequencies in the RF and mm‐wave ranges to better explore the effect of the PGS. Extensive analysis revealed that the shield is able to improve the quality factor (Q‐factor) only of the inductor operated at the lowest frequency (ie, K‐band). On the contrary, it has a detrimental effect on the Q‐factor of the inductors working at higher frequencies. This is mainly due to induced losses in the PGS itself, which are so high to frustrate the substrate loss reduction. This result gives a different perspective to the adoption of the PGS for CMOS integrated inductors, which is largely recommended to improve inductor performance in the current state of the art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief presents a fully integrated dc–dc converter consisting of only two CMOS chips, which are a power oscillator with an integrated transformer and a full-bridge rectifier. A thick inter-metal oxide layer guarantees a galvanic isolation rating as high as 5 kV. A current-reuse hybrid-coupled oscillator is proposed, which is based on a three-winding tapped isolation transformer and improves both output power and silicon area occupation with respect to previous works. The converter is operated at 5-V power supply and is able to deliver up to 300-mW dc power at 10-V output voltage while exhibiting a power density and a power efficiency of 36 mW/mm2 and 24%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a pseudodifferential power amplifier for 77-GHz automotive radar. The circuit is fabricated in a SiGe HBT BiCMOS technology featuring bipolar transistors with fT/f\max of 230/280 GHz. The amplifier adopts a transformer-coupling current-reuse approach to improve both gain and efficiency. An interstacked transformer is also profitably adopted to reduce output losses due to the differential-to-single-ended conversion. The amplifier exhibits a saturated power, a peak power-added efficiency, and a gain of 14.5 dBm, 9%, and 25 dB, respectively, thus achieving a first-rate figure-of-merit as high as 4755. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a 15-dBm power amplifier for 77-GHz automotive radar applications, which is fabricated in a 0.13-\mu\ m SiGe:C BiCMOS process featuring bipolar transistors with f T / f\max of 230/280 GHz. The circuit consists of a two-stage pseudodifferential cascode with fully integrated input/output matching networks. State-of-art performance is achieved with the proposed design algorithm and layout optimization. The amplifier demonstrates a figure-of-merit of 2500 achieving a 22.5-dB power gain and a power-added efficiency of 7.5% at 77 GHz, while drawing 130 mA from a 2.5-V voltage supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]