An Wideband GaN Low Noise Amplifier in a 3×3 mm 2 Quad Flat Non-leaded Package

• Published in: Journal of semiconductor technology and science Vol. 15; no. 2; pp. 301 - 306
• Main Authors: Park, Hyun-Woo, Ham, Sun-Jun, Lai, Ngoc-Duy-Hien, Kim, Nam-Yoon, Kim, Chang-Woo, Yoon, Sang-Woong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Korean
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: resistive feedback; quad flat non-leaded (QFN) package; GaN; low noise amplifier (LNA); inductive peaking; source degeneration
• ISSN: 1598-1657

An ultra-compact and wideband low noise amplifier (LNA) in a quad flat non-leaded (QFN) package is presented. The LNA monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) is implemented in a $0.25{\mu}m$ GaN IC technology on a Silicon Carbide (SiC) substrate provided by Triquint. A source degeneration inductor and a gate inductor are used to obtain the noise and input matching simultaneously. The resistive feedback and inductor peaking techniques are employed to achieve a wideband characteristic. The LNA chip is mounted in the $3{\times}3-mm^2$ QFN package and measured. The supply voltages for the first and second stages are 14 V and 7 V, respectively, and the total current is 70 mA. The highest gain is 13.5 dB around the mid-band, and -3 dB frequencies are observed at 0.7 and 12 GHz. Input and output return losses ($S_{11}$ and $S_{22}$) of less than -10 dB measure from 1 to 12 GHz; there is an absolute bandwidth of 11 GHz and a fractional bandwidth of 169%. Across the bandwidth, the noise figures (NFs) are between 3 and 5 dB, while the output-referred third-order intercept points (OIP3s) are between 26 and 28 dBm. The overall chip size with all bonding pads is $1.1{\times}0.9mm^2$. To the best of our knowledge, this LNA shows the best figure-of-merit (FoM) compared with other published GaN LNAs with the same gate length.