40-Gb/s high-gain distributed amplifiers with cascaded gain stages in 0.18-mu m CMOS
Journal
Ieee Journal of Solid-State Circuits
Journal Volume
42
Journal Issue
12
Pages
2715-2725
Date Issued
2007
Author(s)
Abstract
A novel circuit topology for high-gain distributed amplifiers is presented in this study. Based on the conventional distributed architecture, the gain cells are realized by cascading cas- code stages for gain enhancement. In addition, the stagger-tuning technique is extensively utilized in the design of the cascode stages as well as the cascaded stages, leading to significant improvement in terms of the operating bandwidth and the gain flatness. With the proposed circuit architecture, two amplifiers are implemented in a standard 0.18-μm CMOS technology. The amplifier with a 3 × 3 configuration exhibits a gain of 16.2 dB and a 3-dB bandwidth of 33.4 GHz, while the one in a form of 2 × 4 demonstrates a gain of 20 dB and a bandwidth of 39.4 GHz. Consuming a dc power of 260 mW from a 2.8-V supply voltage, both circuits provide clear eye-opening with a pseudorandom bit sequence (PRBS) at 40 Gb/s. © 2007 IEEE.
SDGs
Type
journal article