Analysis and Design of an X-Band Actively Compensated IMPATT Diode Amplifier

This paper shows how broad-banding of an IMPATT diode amplifier can be achieved using a circuit technique known as active reactance compensation. Theoretical analysis and experimental results both show that the gain-bandwidth products of an uncompensated IMPATT amplifier improves from G¹2/B = k to G¹4/B = 2k (where k is a constant) for the same amplifier actively compensated. The measured 3-dB bandwidth of 230 MHz for a 9.0-GHZ amplifier having a gain of 10 dB is improved to 700 MHz at the same gain.