A Wideband E/W-Band Low-Noise Amplifier MMIC in a 70-nm Gate-Length GaN HEMT Technology

Fabian Thome,Peter Bruckner,Rudiger Quay,Stefano Leone

doi:10.1109/tmtt.2021.3134645

Abstract

This article reports on a gallium-nitride (GaN) low-noise amplifier (LNA) monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) with a 3-dB gain bandwidth (BW) from 63 to 101 GHz. The MMIC is fabricated in the Fraunhofer IAF 70-nm GaN-on-silicon-carbide (SiC) high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) technology. The four-stage common-source LNA exhibits an average noise figure (NF) of 3 dB for a measured frequency range from 75 to 101 GHz. The MMIC reaches a minimum NF of 2.8 dB at an operating frequency of 83 GHz. A mapping of two 100-mm wafers shows an excellent homogeneity with an 86% yield and an average NF of 3–3.3 dB. At 100 GHz, the LNA obtains output-referred 1-dB compression and third-order intercept points of 12.1 and 14.4 dBm, respectively. Furthermore, comprehensive investigations of the bias dependence of all measured performance parameters provide an insight into the presented device and LNA. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this MMIC demonstrates the lowest NF among GaN LNAs at <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${E}/{W}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> -band frequencies.

Highlights

D UE to a high band gap, gallium nitride (GaN) has been widely used for high power amplifiers (PAs) for frequencies as high as 200 GHz
We demonstrate a GaN low-noise amplifier (LNA) monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) fabricated in a 70-nm gate-length highelectron-mobility transistor (HEMT) technology
As a conclusion of the measured dc, small-signal, and large-signal performance, one can summarize that gm-related parameters, such as S21, noise figure (NF), and OIP3, follow the behavior which is already given by the gm curve itself

Summary

INTRODUCTION

D UE to a high band gap, gallium nitride (GaN) has been widely used for high power amplifiers (PAs) for frequencies as high as 200 GHz. When thinking about system applications, one might consider other circuit topologies, e.g., distributed amplifiers, that have reported in W -band an appealing combination of an average NF of 3.6 dB and an output-referred 1-dB compression point (OP1dB) in the range of 7.4–8.4 dBm. In this work, we demonstrate a GaN LNA MMIC fabricated in a 70-nm gate-length HEMT technology. The calibration standards are designed so that the reference planes of the measurement are on the wafer This allows to have the reference plane of THOME et al.: WIDEBAND E/W-BAND LOW-NOISE AMPLIFIER MMIC IN 70-nm GATE-LENGTH GaN HEMT TECHNOLOGY. A maximum fmax of 380 GHz is achieved by increasing Vds and Id to 10 V and 400 mA/mm, respectively

Device Considerations

MMIC Design

MEASUREMENT RESULTS

Small-Signal Measurements

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION