A Comparative Analysis of Peaking Methods for Output Stages of Broadband Amplifiers.

This paper presents a general analysis of peaking methods in output stages of amplifiers for broadband communication systems. It is shown that common peaking methods, although providing significant signal bandwidth enhancement ratios (BWER), are limited to 30%–50% of their speed potential by output matching requirements. A modified T-coil peaking is analyzed which enhances both signal bandwidth and output matching frequency range by up to 200% compared to common peaking methods. A broadband amplifier using this inductive output matching with 69-GHz bandwidth implemented in a 0.25~\mu \m SiGe BiCMOS technology is presented to prove the validity of the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]