Cryogenic indium-phosphide HEMT low-noise amplifier at V-Band
Indium-phosphide (InP) high electron-mobility transistors potentially have the lowest noise at frequencies below 100 GHz, especially when cryogenically cooled. We have designed monolithically integrated InP millimeter-wave low-noise amplifiers (LNA's) for the European Space Agency (ESA) science...
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Published in | IEEE transactions on microwave theory and techniques Vol. 48; no. 7 II; pp. 1283 - 1286 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
01.07.2000
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Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Indium-phosphide (InP) high electron-mobility transistors potentially have the lowest noise at frequencies below 100 GHz, especially when cryogenically cooled. We have designed monolithically integrated InP millimeter-wave low-noise amplifiers (LNA's) for the European Space Agency (ESA) science Planck mission. The Planck LNA's design goal for noise temperature is 35 K at the ambient temperature of 20 K. The operation bandwidth is over 20% at 70 GHz. The maximum allowable power consumption for a Planck LNA (gain 20 dB) is P sub(dc) identical with 5 mW at 20 K. The chosen foundry for these LNA's was DaimlerChrysler Research, Ulm, Germany. The DaimlerChrysler 0.18- mu m InP process was used. This process is well suited for V-band LNA design, giving sufficient gain with very low noise. Several one-, two-, and three-stage amplifiers were designed. The best of them exhibited a noise figure lower than 5.5 dB with a gain higher than 14 dB over the 50-68-GHz range at room temperature. The best single-stage amplifier demonstrated a noise figure of 4.5 dB and a gain higher than 5 dB from 50 to 60 GHz at room temperature. On-wafer measurements on these monolithic-microwave integrated circuits (MMIC's) have been done at MilliLab, Espoo, Finland. For the module fabrication, MMIC chips will be mounted in a WR-15 waveguide split-block housing. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 content type line 23 ObjectType-Feature-1 |
ISSN: | 0018-9480 |