A 1-25 GHz GaN HEMT MMIC Low-Noise Amplifier

• Published in: IEEE microwave and wireless components letters Vol. 20; no. 10; pp. 563 - 565
• Main Authors: Mingqi Chen, Sutton, W, Smorchkova, I, Heying, B, Wen-Ben Luo, Gambin, V, Oshita, F, Tsai, R, Wojtowicz, M, Kagiwada, R, Oki, A, Jenshan Lin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.10.2010; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: Amplifiers; Applied sciences; Bandwidth; Circuit properties; Design. Technologies. Operation analysis. Testing; Electric, optical and optoelectronic circuits; Electronic circuits; Electronics; Exact sciences and technology; Gallium nitride; Gallium nitrides; GaN; HEMTs; High electron mobility transistors; Impedance matching; Inductors; Integrated circuits; low noise amplifier (LNA); Magnetic devices; Microwave circuits, microwave integrated circuits, microwave transmission lines, submillimeter wave circuits; Microwaves; MMICs; Noise; Noise levels; resistive feedback; Semiconductor devices; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Transistors; Transmission line measurements; wideband; Wide band noise; Performance evaluation; Noise figure; Power gain; Low noise amplifier; Feedback regulation; Inductor; Wideband amplifiers; Microwave integrated circuits; High electron mobility transistor; resistive feedback; Feedback; GaN; Electric power consumption; low noise amplifier (LNA); Microwave amplifier; Monolithic integrated circuit; Peak power; MMIC; Shunt; Third order; Ultra wide band; Distributed amplifiers; Intercept point; wideband; HEMT integrated circuits
• ISSN: 1531-1309; 1558-1764
• DOI: 10.1109/LMWC.2010.2059002

This letter presents an ultra-wideband low noise amplifier (LNA) using gallium-nitride (GaN) high-electron mobility transistors (HEMT) technology. A -3 dB bandwidth of 1-25 GHz with 13 dB peak power gain is achieved using a modified resistive-feedback topology. To obtain such a wide bandwidth, several bandwidth enhancement techniques are utilized. An inductor connected to the source of the input transistor ensures good input matching (|S 11 | <; -9 dB) across the entire bandwidth. The shunt feedback loop and the inductive source degeneration minimize all the required inductor values. This GaN HEMT LNA is believed to have the widest bandwidth among all GaN HEMT monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) LNAs reported to date. With 3.3 dB minimum noise figure (F), 33.5 dBm maximum output-referred third-order intercept point (OIP3), 20 dBm maximum output-referred 1 dB compression point (Output P1 dB), this MMIC amplifier is comparable in performance to distributed amplifiers (DAs) but with significantly lower power consumption and smaller area.