A Very Low Power Dissipation Front-End MMIC for L-Band Receivers

A new MMIC front-end circuit configuration is proposed for very low power dissipation. The L band front-end MMIC with this configuration consumes only 11.5 mW power consumption. To minimize current dissipatlion, low noise amplifier and intermediate frequency (IF) amplifier bias lines are vertically connected through an FET current source and a grounding capacitor without RF signal interference and large voltage drop. Using this configuration, we fabricated an L-band front-end one-chip GaAs MMIC whose total power dissipation is 11.5 mW with a conversion gain of over 20 dB. Power dissipation of 11.5 mW is, to our knowledge, the lowest ever reported for front-end MMIC modules.