Design of switch-less silicon-germanium bi-directional amplifier for loss compensation in passive transmit/receive modules

Abstract

The objective of the proposed research is to investigate the design of switch-less bi-directional amplifier (BDA) for loss compensation in passive transmit/receive (T/R) modules, using Silicon-Germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS technology. We have demonstrated an X-band 6-bit high-pass (HP)/low-pass (LP) switched-type phase shifter with embedded inter-stage switch-less SiGe BDA cores. The incorporation of single-ended cascode BDA cores in the phase shifter effectively compensated the insertion loss of passive components, while preserving the bi-directionality of the building block. To further explore the potential of SiGe BDAs in passive T/R loss compensation, we investigate differential topology for switch-less SiGe BDA design.