A 2-20 GHz high-gain monolithic HEMT distributed amplifier

Author

Bandy, Steve G. ; Nishimoto, Clifford K. ; Yuen, Cindy ; Larue, Ross A. ; Day, Mary ; Eckstein, Jim ; Tan, Zoilo C H ; Webb, Christopher ; Zdasiuk, George A.

Author_Institution

Varian Research Center, Palo Alto, CA

Volume

34

Issue

12

fYear

1987

fDate

12/1/1987 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

2603

Lastpage

2609

Abstract

A low-noise 2-21 GHz monolithic distributed amplifier utilizing 0.35-micrometer-gate-length HEMT devices has achieved 12 ± 0.5 dB of gain. This represents the highest gain reported for a distributed amplifier using single FET gain cells. A record low noise figure of 3 dB was achieved midband (4-12 GHz). The circuit design utilizes five HEMT transistors of varying width with gates fabricated by E-beam lithography. The same amplifier fabricated with 0.35-µm-gate-length MESFET´s in place of the HEMT devices resulted in 9.5 ± 0.5 dB of gain across the 2-20 GHz band. This record performance level for a MESFET distributed amplifier is used to determine that the use of HEMT devices rather than the small gate lengths is primarily responsible for the HEMT amplifier performance.

Keywords

Circuit synthesis; Distributed amplifiers; Equivalent circuits; FETs; Gain; Gallium arsenide; HEMTs; MESFETs; Noise figure; Semiconductor process modeling;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/T-ED.1987.23360

Filename

1487071