Power and noise limitations of active circulators

Author

Carchon, Geert ; Nanwelaers, B.

Author_Institution

ESAT, Katholieke Univ., Leuven, Heverlee, Belgium

Volume

48

Issue

2

fYear

2000

fDate

2/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

316

Lastpage

319

Abstract

In this paper, new simple formulas expressing the power and noise limitations for three three-way circulator architectures and three quasi-circulator architectures are derived. It is shown that the power-handling capability of the active three-way circulators is determined by the required transconductance of the transistors in the circuit, while the noise is determined by the drain noise current source. The suitability of the different active circulator architectures for transmit/receive applications is investigated, We conclude that the quasi-circulators based on passive isolation offer the highest performance

Keywords

MMIC; integrated circuit noise; microwave circulators; active circulators; drain noise current source; noise limitations; passive isolation; power limitations; power-handling capability; quasi-circulator architectures; three-way circulator architectures; transistor transconductance; transmit/receive applications; Active noise reduction; Capacitors; Circuit noise; Circulators; Ferrites; MMICs; Noise measurement; Transconductance; Transmitters; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Microwave Theory and Techniques, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9480

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/22.821785

Filename

821785