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This letter presents the design and characterization of a Doherty power amplifier for K-band applications based on the GaAs 150-nm pseudomorphic HEMT (pHEMT) technology of Qorvo. For the output power combiner, a wideband design approach, based on embedding the output capacitance of the active devices in the combiner, is applied. A state-of-the-art bandwidth of 4 GHz is achieved: in the 21–25-GHz range, the output power is above 29.5 dBm, with an associated power added efficiency (PAE) higher than 30%. At 6-dB output back-off, the PAE is above 19% while the corresponding gain is higher than 10 dB.

This paper presents a balanced distributed drain mixer fabricated in a 0.25- $\mu \text{m}$ GaAs p-HEMT technology. The balanced distributed mixer combines two single-ended distributed mixers with an on-chip RF balun and LO divider integrated for improving isolation performance. Each single-ended mixer is designed with three drain-mixing unit cells distributed along transmission lines for broadband operation. The transistor size, bias condition and transmission line lengths are analyzed and determined to improve the conversion gain, bandwidth and impedance matching. In addition, the LO drive power required for mixing operation is reduced by bias optimization and large-signal LO matching. The balanced distributed drain mixer exhibits measured conversion gain of −4.0 to −7.4 dB from 5.4 to 21.8 GHz. The LO drive power of the mixer is as low as 2 dBm. The LO-to-RF and LO-to-IF isolation are higher than 23.5 and 54.7 dB, respectively. The mixer consumes no dc power due to the passive drain-mixing topology.

We developed a 0.1‐μm metamorphic high electron mobility transistor and fabricated a W‐band monolithic microwave integrated circuit chipset with our in‐house technology to verify the performance and usability of the developed technology. The DC characteristics were a drain current density of 747 mA/mm and a maximum transconductance of 1.354 S/mm; the RF characteristics were a cutoff frequency of 210 GHz and a maximum oscillation frequency of 252 GHz. A frequency multiplier was developed to increase the frequency of the input signal. The fabricated multiplier showed high output values (more than 0 dBm) in the 94 GHz–108 GHz band and achieved excellent spurious suppression. A low‐noise amplifier (LNA) with a four‐stage single‐ended architecture using a common‐source stage was also developed. This LNA achieved a gain of 20 dB in a band between 83 GHz and 110 GHz and a noise figure lower than 3.8 dB with a frequency of 94 GHz. A W‐band image‐rejection mixer (IRM) with an external off‐chip coupler was also designed. The IRM provided a conversion gain of 13 dB–17 dB for RF frequencies of 80 GHz–110 GHz and image‐rejection ratios of 17 dB–19 dB for RF frequencies of 93 GHz–100 GHz.

This work presents a process design kit (PDK) for a 0.15 μm GaAs pHEMT process for low-noise MMIC applications developed for AWR Microwave Office (MWO). A complete set of basic elements is proposed, such as TaN thin film resistors and mesa-resistors, capacitors, inductors, and transistors. The developed PDK can be used in technology transfer or education.

Conventional pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor (pHEMTs) with lattice-matched InGaAs/InAlAs/InP structures exhibit high mobility and saturation velocity and are hence attractive for the fabrication of three-terminal low-noise and high-frequency devices, which operate at room temperature. The major drawbacks of conventional pHEMT devices are the very low breakdown voltage (xGa(1−x)As (x = 0.53 or 0.7) channel material plus the contribution of other parts of the epitaxial structure. The capability to achieve higher frequency operation is also hindered in conventional InGaAs/InAlAs/InP pHEMTs, due to the standard 1 μm flat gate length technology used. A key challenge in solving these issues is the optimization of the InGaAs/InAlAs epilayer structure through band gap engineering. A related challenge is the fabrication of submicron gate length devices using I-line optical lithography, which is more cost-effective, compared to the use of e-Beam lithography. The main goal for this research involves a radical departure from the conventional InGaAs/InAlAs/InP pHEMT structures by designing new and advanced epilayer structures, which significantly improves the performance of conventional low-noise pHEMT devices and at the same time preserves the radio frequency (RF) characteristics. The optimization of the submicron T-gate length process is performed by introducing a new technique to further scale down the bottom gate opening. The outstanding achievements of the new design approach are 90% less gate current leakage and 70% improvement in breakdown voltage, compared with the conventional design. Furthermore, the submicron T-gate length process also shows an increase of about 58% and 33% in fT and fmax, respectively, compared to the conventional 1 μm gate length process. Consequently, the remarkable performance of this new design structure, together with a submicron gate length facilitatesthe implementation of excellent low-noise applications.

This work develops a novel dynamic load modulation Power Amplifier (PA) circuity that can provide an optimum compromise between linearity and efficiency while covering multiple cellular frequency bands. Exploiting monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMIC) technology, a fully integrated 1W Doherty PA architecture is proposed based on 0.1 μm AlGaAs/InGaAs Depletion-Mode (D-Mode) technology provided by the WIN Semiconductors foundry. The proposed wideband DPA incorporates the harmonic tuning Class-J mode of operation, which aims to engineer the voltage waveform via second harmonic capacitive load termination. Moreover, the applied post-matching technique not only reduces the impedance transformation ratio of the conventional DPA, but also restores its proper load modulation. The simulation results indicate that the monolithic drive load modulation PA at 4 V operation voltage delivers 44% PAE at the maximum output power of 30 dBm at the 1 dB compression point, and 34% power-added efficiency (PAE) at 6 dB power back-off (PBO). A power gain flatness of around 14 ± 0.5 dB was achieved over the frequency band of 23 GHz to 27 GHz. The compact MMIC load modulation technique developed for the 5G mobile handset occupies the die area of 3.2 mm2. European Commission | Ref. POCI-01-0145-FEDER-030500 European Commission | Ref. Ecsel-345 7831132-Postitio-II-2017-IA European Commission | Ref. UIDB / 50008/2020 Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia | Ref. UIDP / 50008/2020 Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación e Universidades | Ref. TEC2017-88242-C3-2-R

This paper presents the design of a millimeter-wave wideband receiver front-end in a 0.13 $$\upmu$$ m SiGe BiCMOS technology for phased array applications. The receiver front-end is suitable for a phased array time-division duplexing communication system where both the transmitter and the receiver share the same antenna. The monolithic microwave integrated circuit front-end comprises of quarter-wave shunt switches, a low-noise amplifier (LNA), an active phase shifter and a buffer amplifier. The quarter-wave shunt switch is designed using reverse-saturated SiGe HBTs. The transformer-based LNA utilizes a common-emitter amplifier at the first stage and a cascode amplifier at the second stage to exploit the advantages of both common-emitter and cascode topologies. The designed switch is incorporated in the input matching network of the LNA. The active phase shifter consists of variable gain amplifiers driven by a polyphase filter-based quadrature generator. The receiver front-end achieves a measured gain of 18.5 dB and a noise figure of 9 dB with a 3 dB bandwidth of 23 GHz from 56 to 79 GHz. The receiver phase can be tuned continuously from 0 $$^{\circ }$$ to 360 $$^{\circ }$$ . An output referred 1-dB compression point of $$-$$ 7.4 dBm is achieved at 70 GHz. The receiver consumes 116 mW of DC power and occupies a core area of $$1800\,\upmu {\text {m}} \times 475\,\upmu {\text {m}}$$ .

This paper describes X-Band power amplifier (PA), low noise amplifier (LNA) and switches that can be used in transmit/receive modules which are developed with GaN technology. For Transmit chain two 25 W high power amplifiers that are tuned between 8-10 GHz and 10-12 GHz bands are designed. A low noise amplifier with 2 W survivability and less than 2dB noise figure is designed for receive chain Furthermore, an RF switch that is capable of withstanding 25 W RF power is developed for the selection of transmit or receive chains. Measurement results show that both power amplifiers produce 25 W of power. Low noise amplifier has more than 20 dB small signal gain with less than 2 dB noise figure. RF switch has 50 dB of isolation with less than 1 dB insertion loss.

This paper describes an air cavity quad-flat no-leads (QFN) over-molded plastic packaged cascode broadband GaN LNA Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) with resistive feedback fabricated with 0.25 μm GaN HEMT technology. The single stage QFN packaged GaN LNA MMIC achieves a bandwidth of 0.03–2.6 GHz with a typical gain of 11.5 dB and less than 1.5 dB noise figure. The low noise amplifier (LNA) design is based on a model of a concept transistor, the cascode transistor used in the design, that has not been fabricated previously. The concept transistor is fabricated for the first time along with the GaN LNA MMIC. The fabricated GaN LNA MMIC is housed in a 12-lead 3 × 3 mm2 air cavity QFN over-molded plastic package and mounted on an application board. The measurements taken with the application board represent a good convergence with the design that is based on a concept transistor model. The measurement results and 50 Ω internal matching on both ports without the need for additional matching components make this LNA attractive for many applications.

In this paper, a 3.1–11 GHz ultra-wideband low noise amplifier with low noise figure, high power gain S21, low reverse gain S12, and high linearity using the OMMIC ED02AH process, which employs a 0.18 μm Pseudomorphic High Electron Mobility Transistor is presented. This Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) was designed with the Advanced Design System simulator in distributed matrix architecture. For the low noise amplifier, four stages were used obtaining a good input/output matching. An average power gain S21 of 11.6 dB with a gain ripple of ±0.6 dB and excellent noise figure of 3.55 to 4.25 dB is obtained in required band with a power dissipation of 48 mW under a supply voltage of 2 V. The input compression point 1 dB and third-order input intercept point are −1.5 and 23 dBm respectively. The core layout size is 1.8 × 1.2 mm2.

This work presents a self-biased 2-stacked power amplifier cell that shows, in simulations, an output power in excess of 33 dBm and gain and power added efficiency (PAE) above 6 dB and 27 %, respectively, over a 33.5 GHz to 39.5 GHz bandwidth. The cell has been developed on a commercial 100 nm GaN-on-Si process, applying space derating rules at center frequency, where the output power is almost 33.8 dBm, the associated gain is higher than 7 dB and PAE is above 35 %.

This paper outlines an innovative approach to design a spatial power-combining structure based on waveguide polarizers. It presents the 3D CAD model of the new structure with the transversal probes and considerations in positioning and optimization of them. Exploiting the transformation of the dominant input mode TE10 into an elliptically polarized wave, provided by the polarizer, it has been possible to achieve a division of power by eight, completely carried out in space. With the insertion of the transversal probes made by microstrips, the RF signal can be sent to the MMIC solid state power amplifiers, and then recombined in the output section. Thanks to the large number of power divisions made in the waveguide section, the insertion loss of the power divider/combiner is less than 0.5 dB across the 32-34 GHz band, achieving a great power density as well. At the Author’s best knowledge, this is the first work where a waveguide polarizer is used in Spatial Power Combining technology.

A novel Schottky diode frequency doubler in E-band, using biased series-connected diodes in the output waveguide, is reported. The doubler was implemented using a GaAs Schottky Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) process with integrated capacitors and beam leads. A comparison is made with a hybrid doubler using a more conventional single-ended configuration with two discrete diodes in a planar transmission line circuit. Both devices exhibit excellent performance over the 67&ndash, 78 GHz design bandwidth, with the novel MMIC design producing 25 to 55 mW at 12 to 22% power conversion efficiency. Good agreement of measurements with simulations was also found.

Integration is a key way to improve the switching frequency and power density for a DC-DC converter. A monolithic integrated GaN based DC-DC buck converter is realized by using a gate driver and a half-bridge power stage. The gate driver is composed of three stages (amplitude amplifier stage, level shifting stage and resistive-load amplifier stage) to amplify and modulate the driver control signal, i.e., CML (current mode logic) level of which the swing is from 1.1 to 1.8 V meaning that there is no need for an additional buffer or preamplifier for the control signal. The gate driver can provide sufficient driving capability for the power stage and improve the power density efficiently. The proposed GaN based DC-DC buck converter is implemented in the 0.25 &mu, m depletion mode GaN-on-SiC process with a chip area of 1.7 mm &times, 1.3 mm, which is capable of operating at high switching frequency up to 200 MHz and possesses high power density up to 1 W/mm2 at 15 V output voltage. To the authors&rsquo, knowledge, this is the highest power density for GaN based DC-DC converter at the hundreds of megahertz range.

A variety of transitions from a monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) to a waveguide were proposed in literature to enable chip-to-chip links or to provide a standard interface. The MMIC is usually in contact with the waveguide and is therefore exposed to the mechanical stress exerted on the overall system. This paper presents mechanically decoupled transitions from MMIC to a rectangular waveguide and to a dielectric waveguide at G-Band (140 GHz to 220 GHz). Both transitions use a patch radiator on a quartz glass carrier as on-chip antenna. To focus the beam, a dielectric rod antenna or an elliptical dielectric lens is placed on the quartz glass. Since the transitions are mechanically decoupled, a second antenna is used as receive element. A horn antenna connected to the rectangular waveguide or a second dielectric lens connected to the dielectric waveguide is used. The transitions were characterized using a back end of line MMIC. The minimum measured insertion loss is 3.1 dB for the transition from MMIC to rectangular waveguide and 4.9 dB for the transition to dielectric waveguide., acceptedVersion

Millimeter-wave wireless networks of the new fifth generation (5G) have become a primary focus in the development of the information and telecommunication industries. It is expected that 5G wireless networks will increase the data rates and reduce network latencies by an order of magnitude, which will create new telecommunication services for all sectors of the economy. New electronic components such as 28 GHz (27.5 to 28.35 GHz) single-chip transmit radio frequency (RF) front-end monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) will be required for the performance and power consumption of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) 5G communication systems. This component includes a 6-bit digital phase shifter, a driver amplifier and a power amplifier. The output power P3dB and power-added efficiency (PAE) are 29 dBm and 19.2% at 28 GHz. The phase shifter root-mean-square (RMS) phase and gain errors are 3° and 0.6 dB at 28 GHz. The chip dimensions are 4.35 × 4.40 mm.

This work presents the design and preliminary results of two integrated Doherty power amplifiers fabricated on 100nm Gallium Nitride on Silicon, targeting the satellite downlink Ka-band (17.3–20.3 GHz). The MMICs, based on different architectures, have been designed respecting the stringent limits on linearity and devices’ maximum junction temperature imposed by the application. Nevertheless, an average output and efficiency higher than 36dBm and 30%, respectively, are expected across the overall band. The preliminary characterization of the MMICs shows measured small signal behaviours well in agreement with the simulations. In particular, for both MMICs, the measured small signal gain is in excess of 25 dB with both input and output return losses better than 10 dB in the whole frequency band.

The present work proposes a 180&ndash, 225 GHz broadband frequency doubler monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) based on a novel Schottky barrier diode (SBD) terminal structure denoted as a Schottky metal-brim (SMB). Compared with an MMIC adopting the conventional SBD terminal structure, preliminary measurements show that the maximum output power of the MMIC adopting the SMB structure increases from 0.216 mW at 206 GHz to 0.914 mW at 208 GHz. Analysis of the nonlinear current&ndash, voltage and capacitance&ndash, voltage characteristics of the two terminal structures based on an extended one-dimensional drift-diffusion model, indicates that the SMB structure provides significantly better conversion efficiency than the conventional SBD structure by eliminating the accumulation of charge and additional current paths near the Schottky electrode edge. It provides a feasible scheme for the optimization of MMIC applications requiring high power and high efficiency.

In the paper the development of a fully electronic transmit-receive phased-array antenna system in Ku-band for aircraft communications via satellite is presented. Particular emphasis has been placed in the improvement of the following key elements: a dual-polarization self-diplexing radiating element, a transmit/receive active module with full polarization agility based on a digital vector modulator and a SiGe multinode MMIC. The optimized antenna elements enable a significant improvement towards the realization of a future affordable commercial product for satellite communications.

Applied Sciences 10(6), 2183 (2020). doi:10.3390/app10062183, Published by MDPI, Basel

Date of Conference: 14-18 January 2020 Conference Name: 17th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences and Technology, IBCAST 2020 In this paper, we report two low noise broadband amplifiers based on ABMN's AlGaN/GaN on SiC HEMT technology for X-band applications. Two design topologies, a single-stage (LNA-1) and a two-stage (LNA-2), have been investigated. LNA-1 and the first stage of LNA-2 is based on common source (CS) with inductive source degeneration topology. LNA-1 has a flat gain response of ±1.4 dB gain variation with a gain greater than 8 dB for 9 V drain voltage and 100 mA/mm drain current. Input return loss better than 9.8 dB and output return loss better than 12.8 dB have been achieved. The simulated value of noise figure for this design is less than 1.4 dB. In LNA-2 design, a two-stage topology is implemented to enhance amplifier's gain. The simulated values for LNA-2 show a gain greater than 16.8 dB with ±2.9 dB gain variation. Input and output return loss values are better than 8.8 dB and 10 dB, respectively. The value of noise figure for this design is less than 1.7 dB in the desired frequency range. Both designs, having state-of-the art small dimensions, are suitable for their potential applications for space communications, Radar, satellite communications etc.

The aim of this study is to disclose how the performance of a gallium nitride (GaN)-based X-band low-noise amplifier is modified by applying a blue-ray (404 nm) laser beam. The tested amplifier employs an aluminium gallium nitride/GaN (AlGaN/GaN) high electron mobility transistor on silicon carbide whose dc and noise behaviour have been first analysed with and without optical illumination. Mild improvement of the gain together with severe degradation of the noise figure has occurred during light exposure with the amplifier operating according to the recommended bias condition. Conversely, pronounced improvement of the performance has taken place when the amplifier has been biased close to the transistor pinch-off point. The results presented in this work follow a previous intense activity carried out on devices and amplifiers based on gallium arsenide technology.

Funding Information: The authors would like to thank the Academy of Finland for supporting this work through MilliRAD project. The work of M. Varonen was supported through the Academy of Finland Research Fellow project MIDERI (decision no 310234). Publisher Copyright: © 2020 IEEE This paper presents a high dynamic range E-band power detector in a 0.13 µm SiGe BiCMOS technology. In this design the Meyer topology using bipolar transistor is adopted and implemented for E-band operation. The measured detector achieves a dynamic range of 35 dB from -25 dBm to +10 dBm. It shows less than 1.6 dB offset in input power detection from 72 GHz to 82 GHz. This power detector consumes 0.6 mW of DC power and the occupied core area is 0.1 mm2

For highly integrated imaging systems above 100 GHz, the complexity and chip area increases signi���cantly with increasing number of channels. In addition, bulky dielectric lenses prevent applications in spatially restricted surroundings. The presented concept of an imaging monopulse radar with a mechanically ���exible front end reduces the required chip area and allows the antenna to be placed in any desired position apart from the sensitive electronics. The radar system is based on a two-channel 160 GHz microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) feeding a ���exible dielectric waveguide. Depending on the angle of the incidence signal, a sum mode (HE11 mode) and a difference mode (HE21 mode) are excited in the dielectric waveguide. MMIC and waveguide are connected by a self-aligning transition reducing the requirements for packaging accuracy. The required chip area of the transition is only 0.022���� with a spacing between the on-chip antennas of ��/4. The measured ambiguity-free region between ���18�� and 15�� is de���ned by the modi���ed elliptical lens antenna focusing in the E-plane only. A mechanical bending of the ���exible waveguide is possible down to a radius of at least 2 cm without affecting the angle estimation capability., acceptedVersion

The effect of the aperture ratio on the impedance bandwidth of an aperture coupled microstrip antenna (ACMA) is investigated according to the coupling strength from a microstrip feed line to a patch. Since the coupling strength between a feed line and a patch of an ACMA with a high permittivity (εr = 10) feed substrate is small, the impedance bandwidth of the ACMA increases as the aperture ratio increases beyond 0.1. As the feed substrate thickness increases, the aperture ratio for the maximum impedance bandwidth increases and the ratio of the maximum impedance bandwidth to the impedance bandwidth obtained at the aperture ratio of 0.1 increases. Since the coupling strength between a feed line and a patch of an ACMA with a low permittivity (εr = 2.2) feed substrate is large, the maximum impedance bandwidth of the ACMA is approximately the same as the impedance bandwidth obtained at the aperture ratio of 0.1.

This paper presents a reconfigurable multi-input and multi-output amplifier architecture with on-board multiport vector calibration (MVC) for flexible multi-channel transmission in K-band. The proposed architecture controls phases of K-band transmission path to generate a diversity of source-to-target channel power assignment. In addition, the proposed calibration circuitry detects relative amplitude and phase of each transmission path and ensures high isolation at each output port. The proposed architecture consists of waveguide hybrid matrices, amplifier modules, including phase shifter, attenuator and 0°/180° phase inverter monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs), and a MVC block. The MVC is configured with a modulator, two QPSK demodulator MMICs, a digital signal processing board, and 16 digital-to-analog converter units. For the verification of K-band applications, $4\times4$ multi-channel front end was implemented and showed reconfigurable performance as well as stable port-to-port isolation characteristics better than 26 dB from 19.5 to 22.5 GHz.

A 6‐GHz‐to‐18‐GHz monolithic nonuniform distributed power amplifier has been designed using the load modulation of increased series gate capacitance. This amplifier was implemented using a 0.25‐μm AlGaN/GaN HEMT process on a SiC substrate. With the proposed load modulation, we enhanced the amplifier's simulated performance by 4.8 dB in output power, and by 13.1% in power‐added efficiency (PAE) at the upper limit of the bandwidth, compared with an amplifier with uniform gate coupling capacitors. Under the pulse‐mode condition of a 100‐μs pulse period and a 10% duty cycle, the fabricated power amplifier showed a saturated output power of 39.5 dBm (9 W) to 40.4 dBm (11 W) with an associated PAE of 17% to 22%, and input/output return losses of more than 10 dB within 6 GHz to 18 GHz.

This paper investigates various important microwave characteristics of an independently biased 3-stack InGaP/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) chip at both small-signal and large-signal operation. By taking the advantage of the independently biased functionality, bias condition for individual transistor can be adjusted flexibly, resulting in the ability of independent control for both small-signal and large-signal performances. It was found that at small-signal operation stability and isolation characteristics of the proposed configuration can be significantly improved by controlling bias condition of the second-stage and the third-stage transistors while at large-signal operation its linearity and power gain can be improved through controlling the bias condition of the first-stage and the third-stage transistors. To demonstrate the benefits of using such an independently biased configuration, a measured optimum large-signal performance at an operation frequency of 1.6 GHz under an optimum bias condition for the high gain, low distortion were obtained as: $\text {PAE} = 23.5\,\,\%$ , ${\text {P}}_{\text {out}}= 12$ dBm; ${\text {Gain}}= 32.6$ dB at IMD3 = −35 dBc. Moreover, to demonstrate the superior advantage of the proposed configuration, its small-signal and large-signal performance were also compared to that of a single stage common-emitter, a conventional 2-stack, an independently biased 2-stack and a conventional 3-stack configuration. The compared results showed that the independently biased 3-stack is the best candidate among the configurations for various wireless communications applications.

The design and performance of a compact WR3-band 2-bit phase shifter manufactured in a 35-nm InGaAs technology are described. To compensate the loss of the phase shifting networks, active single-pole double-throw switches are embedded. The 180° and 90° phase shifting networks are based on a broadside-coupled 1:1 magnetic transformer and a hybrid edge-coupled tandem coupler, respectively. Measurements show a maximum gain of 0.22 dB with a 3-dB bandwidth of 44 GHz ranging from 235 to 279 GHz. Root-mean-square gain and phase errors are below 0.18 dB and 2.8°, respectively.

A novel hermetically sealed RF packaging concept based on glass is presented. Using the laser induced deep etching (LIDE) technology enables the fabrication of glass vias without degrading the mechanical stability as micro-cracks are completely avoided. Furthermore, aspect ratios of up to 1:10 make this technology superior over conventional packaging solutions for the upper millimeter wave regime beyond 150 GHz. As an initial design demonstration, this paper shows a vertical RF-transition through the glass substrate using Through-Glass Vias (TGVs) with an aspect ratio larger than 1:6. The realized prototypes intended for highly efficient LO/VCO distribution within the glass package show excellent reproducibility with a maximum insertion loss of 0.4 dB up to 40 GHz. In addition, a very compact RF-interconnection from PCB to the glass package using solder balls is presented. The simulation of the RF-transition is in good agreement with the measured reflection and transition coefficient not exceeding ���15 dB and ���1.5 dB up to 35 GHz, respectively., acceptedVersion

The first point to multipoint wireless system at D-band (141 - 148.5 GHz), providing high capacity area sectors fed by high data rate G-band (275 - 305 GHz) links connected to fiber access points, will be described. It is the objective of the European Commission H2020 ULTRAWAVE “Ultra capacity wireless layer beyond 100 GHz based on millimeter wave Traveling Wave Tubes”. The high transmission power provided by novel millimeter wave traveling wave tube will allow an unprecedented range and data rate at this frequency band. A novel MMIC chipset including components built by GaAs and InP processes to realize a full electronics solution for the sub-THz wireless communication system will be described.

To achieve the low noise and wide bandwidth required for millimeter wavelength astronomy applications, superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixer based receiver systems have typically been used. This paper investigates the performance of high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) based low noise amplifiers (LNAs) as an alternative approach for systems operating in the 125 - 211 GHz frequency range. A four-stage, common-source, unconditionally stable monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) design is presented using the state-of-the-art 35 nm indium phosphide HEMT process from Northrop Grumman Corporation. The simulated MMIC achieves noise temperature (Te) lower than 58 K across the operational bandwidth, with average Te of 38.8 K (corresponding to less than 5 times the quantum limit (hf/k) at 170 GHz) and forward transmission of 20.5 +/- 0.85 dB. Input and output reflection coefficients are better than -6 and -12 dB, respectively, across the desired bandwidth. To the authors knowledge, no LNA currently operates across the entirety of this frequency range. Successful fabrication and implementation of this LNA would challenge the dominance SIS mixers have on sub-THz receivers., 8 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Submitted and accepted in Experimental Astronomy, awaiting publication

This paper presents an innovative stacked-FET cell useful to enhance both, gain and output power of RF and mm-wave power amplifiers. The new structure has been validated through the design of a downlink Ka-band Doherty Power Amplifier. The resulting module is a two stages Microwave Monolithic Integrated Circuit (MMIC) fabricated on a commercial 100nm gate length Gallium nitride on Silicon technology. The design was carried out to satisfy not only the power requirements but also to meet the thermal constraints for space use. Simulation results have shown a power added efficiency (PAE) greater of 30% at 6dB of output power back-off with a peak of output power of 38dBm inside the operative band, from 17.3 GHz to 20.3 GHz. Whereas, a saturated gain above 17dB has been achieved with a gain flatness better than 0.5dB in the overall band. The chip area is 5×3.7mm2.

International audience; AlGaN/GaN hetero-structure varactors with various sizes have been fabricated and characterized in the large-signal regime to construct a non-linear model. A standard 0.5 \mum gate width GaN HEMT process was used to fabricate these varactors. The proposed large signal model maintains good accuracy up to 10 GHz and RF power levels up to 18 dBm. The Cmax/Cmin ratio for all devices is about 1.73 under small signal operation (below 5 dBm) and decreases to 1.25 at 18 dBm. This large signal model is described by an approximate analytical expression containing empirical coefficients which are introduced for the voltage and RF power dependency of capacitance. In addition, the analytical solution agrees remarkably well with the experimentally extracted C-V curves at various RF power levels and can be used as a general model to represent the nonlinear behavior of GaN based varactors devices. © 2019 IEEE.

This paper presents an X-band 40 W power amplifier with high efficiency based on 0.25 &mu, m GaN HEMT (High Electron Mobility Transistor) on SiC process. An equivalent RC (Resistance Capacitance) model is presented to provide accurate large-signal output impedances of GaN HEMTs with arbitrary dimensions. By introducing the band-pass filter topology, broadband impedance matching networks are achieved based on the RC model, and the power amplifier MMIC (Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit) with enhanced bandwidth is realized. The measurement results show that this power amplifier at 28 V operation voltage achieved over 40 W output power, 44.7% power-added efficiency and 22 dB power gain from 8 GHz to 12 GHz. The total chip size is 3.20 mm &times, 3.45 mm.

This study presents a 2–20 GHz monolithic distributed power amplifier (DPA) using a 0.25 μm AlGaN/GaN on SiC high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) technology. The gate width of the HEMT was selected after considering the input capacitance of the unit cell that guarantees decade bandwidth. To achieve high output power using small transistors, a 12-stage DPA was designed with a nonuniform drain line impedance to provide optimal output power matching. The maximum operating frequency of the proposed DPA is above 20 GHz, which is higher than those of other DPAs manufactured with the same gate-length process. The measured output power and power-added efficiency of the DPA monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) are 35.3–38.6 dBm and 11.4%–31%, respectively, for 2–20 GHz.

This work presents a GaAs monolithic voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) for S and C bands. It has enhanced performance in term of both linearity and tunability, providing a wideband solution for modern re-configurable communication systems. The chip has been designed and fabricated with the HB20M technology process provided by UMS Foundry. Measurements show very good results demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed design strategy. The measured tuning range is about 30%; the VCO shows an average sensitivity of about 83 MHz/V with a minimum output power of 11.4 dBm and a phase noise lower of -107 dBc/Hz at 100 kHz of frequency offset from the carrier.

An integrated active Balun has been developed for ultra-wideband communication systems. This solution integrates in a single chip a protection from the presence of high-level signals, an ultra-wideband amplifier, a further differential-to-single ended amplification stage and an impedance transformer. The MMIC has a very large bandwidth ranging from 0.5 GHz to 18.0 GHz and has been conceived to be driven by a self-complementary antenna and a balanced mode with an input impedance of 150 ohms. In addition, the circuit has a single bias from the output port that greatly simplifies the mechanical structure of the module. Performance are promising, having measurements confirmed the simulation results.

In this paper we report a cryogenically cooled CMOS amplifier covering at least 75 to 115 GHz frequency range. The amplifier chip was fabricated in 2S-nm FD SOI CMOS technology. When cryogenically cooled to 20 K and measured on-wafer the CMOS amplifier shows lOS-ISS K noise temperature from 75 to 115 GHz. This means 6 to 8 times improvement in noise temperature compared to room temperature noise. The measured small-signal gain is around 20 dB. To the best of authors' knowledge, these are the first cryogenic measurements of millimeter-wave CMOS amplifiers and lowest CMOS LNA noise temperatures for W-Band reported to date.

This paper presents the design and the performance of a six stage GaAs MMIC distributed amplifier (DA) for optical driver applications. The DA is fabricated in a commercially available 0.15 μm GaAs p-HEMT technology. The amplifier exhibits 13 dB of small gain over 40 GHz of 3 dB bandwidth with a power consumption equal to 550 mW. Group delay time variation up to 30 GHz is only ±7 ps. The output power is higher than 16 dBm (4 V pp ), which makes the circuit suitable as a preamplifier for lithium-niobate (LiNb03) optical modulator driver. The DA is demonstrated as a part of the modulator driver in a 12.5 GBps PAM-4 (25Gbps) optical system by using the eye diagram as a figure of merit. This work was supported in part by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF/FEDER) under research projects TEC2014-60283-C3-1-R and TEC2017-88242-C3-1-R, and in part by the French company Vectrawave through the project SOPA (Support On Power Amplifier design).

Three active cold load circuits operating at millimetre-wave frequencies are presented. The circuits have been manufactured using 100 nm metamorphic high electron mobility transistor technology. On-wafer measurements of noise temperature and match are presented. Measured noise temperatures are 75 K, 141 K, and 170 K at 31.4 GHz, 52 GHz, and 89 GHz, respectively. Measured reflection coefficients are better than -19 dB for all designs.

A K-band monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) transmit and receive (T/R) single pole double throw (SPDT) switch with low insertion loss, high isolation and ultra-high output power is demonstrated using 0.15- $\mu\text{m}$ Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) technology. A shunt field effect transistor (FET) configuration is used to provide low insertion loss and high isolation while the stacked-FET is employed to improve power handling capability. The novel GaAs switch exhibits a minimum measured insertion loss of 1.4 dB and less than 2.5 dB from 22 GHz to 26 GHz as well as 44 dB isolation. The measured input 1-dB power compression point $({P}_{1\, \mathrm{dB}})$ exceeds 4 W.

An ultra-compact watt-level Ka-band monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) power amplifier (PA) is demonstrated using a 0.15 $\mu\text{m}$ Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) stacked field effect transistor (stacked-FETs) configuration. The fabricated PA exhibits 31.5 dBm output power, 17 dB gain and 33% power added efficiency (PAE). The bandwidth is from 26 GHz to 31 GHz. The PA achieves 0.7 Watt/mm2 power density at 28 GHz. To the best of our knowledge, this PA achieves the highest power density among reported GaAs Ka-band PAs.

This paper presents an X-band GaN HEMT power amplifier with a third harmonic-tuned circuit for a higher power density per area and a higher power-added efficiency (PAE) using a 0.25 μm GaN HEMT process of WIN semiconductors, Inc. The optimum load impedances at the fundamental and third harmonic frequencies are extracted from load-pull simulations at the transistor’s extrinsic plane, including the drain-source capacitance and the series drain inductance. The third harmonic-tuned circuit is effectively integrated with the output matching circuit at the fundamental frequency, without complicating the whole output matching circuit. The input matching circuit uses a lossy matching scheme, which allows a good return loss and a simple LC low-pass circuit configuration. The fabricated power amplifier monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) occupies an area of 13.26 mm2, and shows a linear gain of 20 dB or more, a saturated output power of 43.2~44.7 dBm, and a PAE of 35~37% at 8.5 to 10.5 GHz.

In this paper, two self-biased LNAs are presented. Such amplifiers operate in the Q-band, covering 4 GHz between 42 GHz and 46 GHz. Both structu res are 2-stage configurations, adopting for each stage the common source topology with inductive feedback. The total area occupation for each LNA is 3.0×1.2 mm2. Noise figure lower than 1.55 dB has been obtained for version 1 and 1.5 dB for version 2. In-band gain for both versions is comprised between 17 dB and 19 dB, with a ripple lower than 0.5 dBpp/GHz.

In this paper we report ultra-low-noise amplifier modules and amplifier module chains for V-band (50-75 GHz). The amplifier chips were fabricated in Northrop Grumman Corporation's (NGC) 35-nm InP HEMT technology and packaged in WR15 waveguide housings utilizing alumina E-plane waveguide probes. The amplifier modules achieve 18 to 27 K noise temperatures from 50 to 75 GHz when cryogenically cooled to 21 K. When measured through a mylar vacuum window, a cascade of two amplifier modules achieves a receiver noise temperature of 18.5 K at 58 GHz. A second chain has a measured receiver noise temperature between 20 to 28 K for the whole V-band. To the best of authors' knowledge, these are the lowest LNA noise temperatures for V-Band reported to date.

This paper presents the design of high-performance E-band single-pole double-through (SPDT) switch and low noise amplifier (LNA) as a part of transceiver front-end in an 0.13 μm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The quarter-wave shunt SPDT switch is designed using reverse-saturated SiGe HBTs. The resulting switch exhibits an insertion loss of 2.1 dB, isolation of 26 dB, reflection coefficient better than 18 dB at 75 GHz and provides a bandwidth of more than 35 GHz. The designed switch is integrated with a single-in differential-output (SIDO) low noise amplifier (LNA) and utilized as input matching element of the LNA. The LNA utilizes a common-emitter amplifier at the first stage and a casocode amplifier at the second stage to exploit the advantages of both common-emitter and cascode topologies. The resulting LNA with integrated switch achieves a gain and noise figure(NF) of 26 dB and 6.9 dB, respectively at 75 GHz with a 3 dB bandwidth of 12 GHz. Output referred 1-dB compression point of +5.5 dBm is achieved at 75 GHz.The designed integrated block consumes 45.5 mW of DC power and occupies an area of 720 μm × 580 μm excluding RF pads.

Indium Phosphide MMIC LNAs are enabling new capabilities in instrument development. The development of arrays of hundreds of cryogenically-cooled millimeter wave receivers has previously been challenging, but is now achievable with highly repeatable MMIC processes and advances in cryogenic on-wafer testing of LNAs. We have developed InP HEMT LNA MMICs for the 67–90 GHz frequency band that is the last missing receiver system from the ALMA. These MMICs provided average performance of less than 22.5 K noise temperature over the frequency band and minimum noise temperature of 17.5 K at 72 GHz. These LNAs achieve NT=220K (NF=2.4dB) at 90 GHz for Earth remote sensing instrument on Sentinel-6. Our HRMR (High Resolution Microwave Radiometer) achieves NEDT < 0.05K enabling Sentinel-6 to measure coastal ocean topography at 3 km resolution with better than 1 cm accuracy.

This letter presents an integrated Doherty power amplifier (PA) in 0.25- $\mu \text{m}$ GaN on SiC process. Designed for 15-GHz point-to-point radios, the PA exhibits an output power of 36 ± 0.5 dBm between 13.7 and 15.3 GHz, while at 14.6 GHz, it shows a 6-dB output back-off efficiency higher than 28%. Modulated signal measurements applying digital predistortion demonstrate the compatibility of the amplifier with point-to-point radio requirements. To the best of our knowledge, this PA has the highest back-off efficiency for the 15-GHz band, and is the first GaN Doherty in the Ku-band.

In radar measurements the observed area is limited by the antenna beamwidth and due to the usually ���xed transceiver position, only unhidden targets in a small observation area can be detected. Furthermore, bulky lens dimensions prevent the use of radar systems in constricted surroundings despite the small dimensions of microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) radars. To avoid this issue, a new system concept for a ���exible and low cost 160 GHz radar sniffer probe is presented. The ���exible sniffer probe is an extremely low loss dielectric waveguide with a dielectric elliptical lens (28 dBi) at the end. The dielectric waveguide has dielectric losses of 4.5 dB/m at 160 GHz and high ���exibility, supporting bending radii of 1.5 cm with negligible losses. To feed the dielectric waveguide a metallic waveguide with a duplexer is used which is fed by a special MMIC-to-metallic waveguide transition. The proposed system expands the known radar measurement scenarios with new industrial, medical, and security applications., acceptedVersion