Analysis, Design and Measurement of Active Low-Noise Terminations

Active terminations are helpful when dealing with planar antenna arrays. In fact, some antenna elements may be used as dummy ones to prevent electromagnetic field asymmetries. Such antennas should be terminated on loads that are as low noise as possible so as not to disturb the neighbouring active antennas. By using the proposed methodology, an active 50 Omega, low noise termination with an equivalent noise temperature of about 100 K at room temperature has been designed in the full C-Band frequency range. Measurements on the fabricated MMIC are given demonstrating a good agreement between the predicted 80-100 K minimum equivalent noise temperature and the measured one.