Tunable microwave amplifier using a compact MEMS impedance matching network

Author

Domingue, Frédéric ; Kouki, Ammar B. ; Mansour, Raafat R.

Author_Institution

LACIME Lab., Ecole de Technol. Super., Montreal, QC, Canada

fYear

2009

fDate

Sept. 29 2009-Oct. 1 2009

Firstpage

1704

Lastpage

1707

Abstract

This paper presents the design of a reconfigurable RF amplifier based on compact tunable MEMS impedance matching network for low frequency applications. The amplifier uses a pHEMT transistor fabricated in GaAs technology while the MEMS circuits were fabricated using a dedicated RF MEMS process. The reconfigurable network is based on a slow-wave distributed MEMS transmission line (SW-DMTL) presenting a wide impedance coverage at low frequencies. The performance of the amplifier is controlled for frequencies from 3.5 to 9 GHz while the gain is kept around the maximum available stable gain. Moreover, the amplifier operates under various source impedance conditions.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; gallium arsenide; high electron mobility transistors; impedance matching; microfabrication; microwave amplifiers; wide band gap semiconductors; GaAs; compact MEMS impedance matching network; dedicated RF MEMS process; frequency 3.5 GHz to 9 GHz; pHEMT transistor; reconfigurable RF amplifier; slow-wave distributed MEMS transmission line; tunable microwave amplifier; Frequency; Gallium arsenide; Impedance matching; Micromechanical devices; Microwave amplifiers; Microwave transistors; PHEMTs; Performance gain; Radiofrequency amplifiers; Tunable circuits and devices;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Conference, 2009. EuMC 2009. European

Conference_Location

Rome

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-4748-0

Type

conf

Filename

5296314