Title :
Reflection-Type RTD Low-Power Amplifier With Deep Sub-mW DC Power Consumption
Author :
Jongwon Lee ; Jooseok Lee ; Kyounghoon Yang
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. Eng., Korea Adv. Inst. of Sci. & Technol. (KAIST), Daejeon, South Korea
Abstract :
This letter presents a resonant tunneling diode (RTD)-based microwave amplifier operating at deep sub-milliwatt level dc-power. The fabricated amplifier, which is based on a reflection-type amplifying topology and uses an InP monolithic microwave integrated circuit technology, shows extremely low dc-power consumption of 125 μW with a gain of more than 10 dB at 5.7 GHz. The amplifier performance is mainly enabled by the favorable characteristics of the 0.9-μm InP-based RTDs biased at VBIAS = 0.36 V. The RTDs exhibit a high peak-to-valley current ratio (PVCR) of 11.2 with a low peak current (IP) of 430 μA and thereby a relatively low negative resistance magnitude of 480 Ω. The dc-power consumption is about 6.4 times lower than that in transistor-based low-power amplifiers reported to date for the 5 GHz frequency band.
Keywords :
III-V semiconductors; MMIC amplifiers; indium compounds; integrated circuit design; low-power electronics; power consumption; resonant tunnelling diodes; DC power consumption; InP; PVCR; current 430 muA; deep submilliwatt level DC-power; frequency 5 GHz; frequency 5.7 GHz; monolithic microwave integrated circuit technology; negative resistance magnitude; peak-to-valley current ratio; power 125 muW; reflection-type RTD low-power amplifier; reflection-type amplifying topology; resistance 480 ohm; resonant tunneling diode-based microwave amplifier; size 0.9 mum; transistor-based low-power amplifiers; voltage 0.36 V; Biomedical measurement; Couplers; Gain; Loss measurement; MMICs; Microwave circuits; Wireless communication; MMIC amplifiers; negative resistance circuits; quantum effect semiconductor devices; resonant tunneling diodes (RTDs);
Journal_Title :
Microwave and Wireless Components Letters, IEEE
DOI :
10.1109/LMWC.2014.2322751
