A 39 GHz Bi-Directional Driver Amplifier in 65-nm CMOS for Phased Array Applications

This paper presents a 39 GHz bi-directional driver amplifier (BDA) in a 65-nm CMOS process. The asymmetric series T/R switch is embedded at the input of the first stage in each path to transmit the signal in the TX (RX) mode while exhibiting a high impedance in the RX (TX) mode. To improve the driving capability of the single path in the phased array system, a two-stage BDA with an OP1dB of 8 dBm and a Psat of 12.7 dBm is realized. The proposed BDA achieves a peak S-21 of 12 dB with a 3-dB bandwidth from 33 to 44 GHz, resulting in a fractional bandwidth of 28.5%. The minimum noise figure (NF) is 7.7 dB at 40 GHz. The BDA consumes a DC power of 90 mW from a 1.2 V supply. The chip area is 0.6 mm(2) with all the pads and the core area is 0.2 mm(2).