A D-band phase compensated variable gain amplifier

摘要

This paper presents a variable gain amplifier (VGA) for D-band (110 – 170 GHz) applications using metamorphic high electron mobility transistors (mHEMT) with gate lengths of 100 nm. The VGA is based on a cascode architecture with gate-widths of 2×30µm and is designed with phase compensation techniques. The overall chip-size is 0.75×0.75mm². With 50Ω terminations and a 2V supply-voltage the maximum gain is approximately 10 dB with a control range of over 16 dB. Phase deviations versus gain are less than 4° at frequencies around 161 GHz with input- and output return loss both better than −7 dB.