X- and Ku-band amplifiers with GaAs Schottky-barriers field-effect transistors

During recent years significant progress has been made in GaAs technology and the GaAs Schottky-barrier field-effect transistor now shows outstanding microwave gain and noise properties. Two experimental microwave amplifiers demonstrate that the device is very well suited for broad-band applications and that large bandwidth in the X- and Ku-band can be obtained with simple circuits. The first of the two three-stage amplifiers realized was optimized with respect to noise and a noise figure of 3.8 dB was obtained at 8 GHz; the maximum gain is 17.5 dB at 8.3 GHz and the 3-dB bandwidth is 1.3 GHz. The second amplifier has a maximum gain of 11.5 dB at 11.5 GHz. The gain is greater than 8.5 dB in the range 9.5-14.3 GHz.