Mismatch Considerations in Evaluating Amplifier Noise Performance

In terms of a total system evaluation, the potential mismatch errors in the evaluation of noise figure or effective input noise temperature are of greater magnitude than is the case in power measurement. In spite of this, this topic has found only limited coverage in the literature. Moreover, the existing treatments are in terms of parameters whose evaluation requires a significant effort. This paper applies a "terminal invariant" formulation which provides a deeper physical insight to this problem. It also permits a number of useful conclusions to be drawn with a minimum of additional effort.