Ultra-low-noise indium-phosphide MMIC amplifiers for 85-115 GHz

Author

Archer, John W. ; Lai, Richard ; Gough, Russell

Author_Institution

Telecommun. & Ind. Phys., CSIRO, Epping, NSW, Australia

Volume

49

Issue

11

fYear

2001

fDate

11/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

2080

Lastpage

2085

Abstract

This paper describes a high-performance indium-phosphide monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) amplifier, which has been developed for cooled application in ultra-low-noise imaging-array receivers. At 300 K, the four-stage amplifier exhibits more than 15-dB gain and better than 10-dB input and output return loss from 80 to 110 GHz. The room-temperature noise figure is typically 3.2 dB, measured between 90-98 GHz. When cooled to 15 K, the gain increases to more than 18 dB and the noise figure decreases to 0.5 dB. Only one design pass was required to obtain very good agreement between the predicted and measured characteristics of the circuit. The overall amplifier performance is comparable to the best ever reported for MMIC amplifiers in this frequency band

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; MMIC amplifiers; indium compounds; integrated circuit noise; millimetre wave amplifiers; 0.5 dB; 10 dB; 15 K; 15 dB; 18 dB; 3.2 dB; 300 K; 85 to 115 GHz; InP; circuit design; gain; indium phosphide MMIC amplifier; noise figure; return loss; ultra-low-noise millimeter-wave imaging array receiver; Australia; Circuits; HEMTs; Indium phosphide; Low-noise amplifiers; MMICs; MODFETs; Millimeter wave communication; Millimeter wave technology; Noise figure;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Microwave Theory and Techniques, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9480

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/22.963140

Filename

963140