Experimental Characterization of Stability Margins in Microwave Amplifiers

This paper proposes a method for the experimental estimation of the stability margins in microwave amplifiers. The approach is based on measuring a closed-loop frequency response representing the linearization of the circuit about a steady-state solution. Critical poles of the amplifier are then obtained by applying conventional pole-zero identification techniques to the measured frequency response. As circuit parameters are modified, the evolution of these critical poles on the complex plane provides a practical way to assess the robustness of the design regarding its stability. Two types of common instabilities in microwave amplifiers are studied: low-frequency bias oscillations and parametric oscillations. For the low-frequency oscillations, the approach proposes the inclusion of an observation RF port into the amplifier bias path to experimentally obtain the critical poles of the circuit from a reflection coefficient measurement. Pole-placement techniques are then applied to increase the stability margin of detected critical resonances. For the parametric oscillations, pole-zero identification is applied to a frequency response obtained from a mixer-like characterization equivalent to the measurement of a “hot” reflection coefficient. The methodology is applied to two amplifier prototypes: an L-band field-effect transistor amplifier and a dual-mode WiFi-WIMAX amplifier that exhibit different kinds of unstable behavior.