UC San Diego

This research work aims on exploiting SiGe HBT technologies in high dynamic range wideband RF linear-in- dB envelope detectors and linear amplifiers. First, an improved all-npn broadband highly linear SiGe HBT differential amplifier is presented based on a variation of Caprio's Quad. A broadband linear amplifier with 46dBm OIP₃ at 20MHz, 34dBm OIP₃ at 1GHz, 6dB noise figure and 10.3dBm P₁dB is demonstrated. Second, an improved exact dynamic model of a fast-settling linear-in-dB Automatic Gain Control (AGC) circuit is developed. Based on this, a wideband linear-in-dB RF envelope detector is implemented in TowerJazz Semiconductor 0.18 [Mu]m SBC BiCMOS process with 2.5GHz bandwidth and 50dB dynamic range