High Power 10-18 GHz Monolithic Limiter Based on GaAs p-i-n Technology

• Published in: IEEE microwave and wireless components letters Vol. 32; no. 9; pp. 1107 - 1110
• Main Authors: Li, Shifeng, Ma, Lijun, Wang, Leiyang, Lei, Xiao, Wu, Bang, Cheng, Gary J., Liu, Feng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.09.2022
• Subjects: 10–18 GHz; GaAs p-i-n; Gallium arsenide; high-power; Impedance; limiter; P-i-n diodes; PIN photodiodes; Power generation; Schottky diodes; Temperature measurement
• ISSN: 1531-1309; 1558-1764
• DOI: 10.1109/LMWC.2022.3161152

Herein, based on a rounded rectangle p-i-n diode with the minimum radius allowed by the process and a 0.8- <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\boldsymbol {\mu }\mathbf {m} </tex-math></inline-formula> thick I-layer, a high-power wideband monolithic limiter was realized by using GaAs p-i-n process. At 16 GHz, the maximum handling power of the monolithic limiter is up to 400 W (56 dBm), while the output power is less than 45 mW (16.5 dBm). Meantime, the insertion loss of the limiter is less than 0.55 dB and the return loss is better than −15 dB in the frequency range of 10-18 GHz, which has little effect on the signal of the receiver. It demonstrates that the limiter has a significant potential in high-frequency and high-power phased-array radars and communication systems.