Title :
On the Recovery Time of Highly Robust Low-Noise Amplifiers
Author :
Liero, Armin ; Dewitz, Mike ; Kühn, Silvio ; Chaturvedi, Nidhi ; Xu, Jijun ; Rudolph, Matthias
Author_Institution :
Leibniz Insitut fur Hochstfrequenztechnik (FBH), Ferdinand-Braun-Inst., Berlin, Germany
fDate :
4/1/2010 12:00:00 AM
Abstract :
Recently, GaN-based low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) were shown to provide high ruggedness together with low noise figure. Since no limiter is required to protect the input, these LNAs allow for simplified receiver architectures. This paper presents an in-depth analysis of the recovery time of a highly rugged LNA. Recovery time is measured in the time domain, and an analytical approximation is developed that allows to estimate and optimize recovery. A new measurement setup is established in order to determine the impact of the overdrive pulse on LNA gain. An X-band LNA is shown as an example. It survives input overdrive powers of up to 46 dBm under pulsed and 40 dBm under continuous wave conditions, with a noise figure of 2.8 dB. Extremely short recovery times below were simulated and measured.
Keywords :
HEMT integrated circuits; III-V semiconductors; MMIC amplifiers; field effect MMIC; gallium compounds; integrated circuit measurement; integrated circuit noise; low noise amplifiers; optimisation; wide band gap semiconductors; GaN; LNA gain; MMIC LNA; X-band HEMT LNA monolithic microwave integrated circuit; analytical approximation; continuous wave condition; highly robust low-noise amplifier; noise figure; optimization; overdrive power; overdrive pulse; pulsed condition; recovery time; rugged LNA; time domain measurement; Amplifier noise; integrated circuit noise; microwave field-effect transistor (FET) amplifiers; monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) amplifiers; noise; semiconductor device noise;
Journal_Title :
Microwave Theory and Techniques, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TMTT.2010.2041519
