Abstract
Recent advances in printed circuit and packaging technology of microwave and millimeter wave circuits result to the increasing use of MMICs in telecommunication systems. At Microwave and Fiber Optics Lab of NTUA several designs of various MMICs were conducted using the HP Eesof CAD Tool and FET and HEMT models of F20 and H40 GaAs foundry process of GEC Marconi. The designed MMICs are constructed in Europractice Organization while on‐wafer probe measurements are performed in the Lab. In that framework, MMIC technologies are employed in the design of power and low noise amplifiers and couplers to be used for mobile and wireless communications as well as remote sensing and radar applications. A medium power linear FET amplifier has been designed with combining techniques on a single chip. The circuit operates at 14.4–15.2 GHz with an input power of −15 dB m, a 36 dB total gain, while the input and output VSWR is less than 1.6. Due to high cost of MMIC fabrication only the first subunit was manufactured and tests verified the simulation results. Additionally, novel techniques have been used for the design of two coupling networks at 10 GHz in order to minimize the area occupied. A meander‐kind design as well as shunt capacitors were implemented for a 90° quadrature coupler and a Wilkinson one in order to reduce size. Finally, a two stages low noise amplifier was designed with the use of H40 GaAs process in order the differences between the relevant designs to be explored. The key specifications for this MMIC LNA include operation at 10 GHz with a total gain of 17 dB while the noise figure is less than 1.5 dB.
Highlights
Recent advances in printed circuit technology and especially in packaging technology emerged a continuously increasing use of Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMICs) in telecommunication systems
These are shown in the following table: Bandwidth Input power Total gain Noise figure VSWRin,out Output power
The performance of the whole amplifier unit due to simulation is given in the diagrams of Figures 6 and 7. From these figures it is derived that the total gain of the circuit is approximately 36 dB while a very good degree of stability is obtained as well as a noise figure of 5 dB at the bandwidth of consideration
Summary
Recent advances in printed circuit technology and especially in packaging technology emerged a continuously increasing use of Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMICs) in telecommunication systems. A variety of microwave circuits such as amplifiers, mixers, couplers, phase shifters and others can be integrated while the use of MMIC is expanded in several different applications [1,2,3]. Result is the construction of chips with reduced power consumption and improved reliability performance. The MMIC design with CAD tools is of major importance due to the performance simulation and parameter optimization capabilities that provides. In the following three MMIC circuits designs will be presented. The circuits include a medium power amplifier chip, MMIC coupling circuits and a Low Noise amplifier design
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