A K-band subharmonic down-converter in a GaAs metamorphic HEMT process

Author

Matinpour, B. ; Lal, N. ; Laskar, J. ; Leoni, R.E., III. ; Whelan, C.S.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Georgia Inst. of Technol., Atlanta, GA, USA

Volume

2

fYear

2001

fDate

20-24 May 2001

Firstpage

1337

Abstract

In this paper, we present the first implementation of a K-band subharmonic down-converter fabricated in a 0.18-/spl mu/m GaAs Metamorphic High Electron Mobility Transistor (MHEMT) process. The low noise and high gain characteristics of the MHEMTs at K-band allow for the integration of a single-stage amplifier with a subharmonic mixer resulting in low-power broadband performance. The subharmonic mixer exhibits conversion loss of 13 dB and IIP3 of +8 dBm from 23 to 30 GHz. With the addition of the amplifier, the down-converter exhibits a conversion loss of 3 dB, noise figure of 5 dB, and IIP3 of -5 dBm from 26 to 30 GHz. The single-stage amplifier exhibits InP-like performance with gain of 11 dB, NF of 1.5 dB, and dc power consumption of 15 mW.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; gallium arsenide; high electron mobility transistors; low-power electronics; microwave field effect transistors; microwave frequency convertors; 0.18 micron; 1.5 dB; 11 dB; 13 dB; 15 mW; 23 to 30 GHz; 3 dB; 5 dB; DC power consumption; GaAs; GaAs metamorphic HEMT; IIP3; K-band subharmonic down-converter; conversion loss; gain; low-power broadband characteristics; noise figure; single-stage amplifier; Broadband amplifiers; Gallium arsenide; HEMTs; K-band; Low-noise amplifiers; MODFETs; Noise figure; Performance gain; Power amplifiers; mHEMTs;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Symposium Digest, 2001 IEEE MTT-S International

Conference_Location

Phoenix, AZ, USA

ISSN

0149-645X

Print_ISBN

0-7803-6538-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MWSYM.2001.967141

Filename

967141