Highly linear 1–3 GHz GaN HEMT low-noise amplifier

A highly linear low-noise amplifier (LNA) based on a commercial Gallium Nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) technology is presented. The amplifier can be operated at three frequency bands of 1, 2 and 3 GHz. The maximum measured gain is 31 dB at 1GHz and the output referred third-order intercept point (OIP3) is constant for all three frequency bands and equal to 41±1 dBm at a power consumption of 1.2 W. A minimum noise figure (NF) of 0.5 dB is measured for the amplifier at the same bias point demonstrating the simultaneous linearity and low noise performance. The presented performance together with the reasonably low power consumption is outstanding in comparison with recently published amplifiers in GaN technology and available commercial GaAs LNAs.