Distributed active balun with improved linearity performance

Abstract

A new active balun topology is introduced allowing to overcome gain and bandwidth limitations of traditional out-of-phase power dividers. Proposed architecture employs distributed circuits as Artificial Transmission Line Pair (ATLP) and Split Drain Distributed Amplifier (SDDA) for achieving a broadband signal balancing and featuring a positive insertion gain too. In this contribution a complete theoretical analysis for the ATLP and SDDA principle of operation is provided together with the description of the actual design flow. MMIC test vehicle operating on the multi-octave frequency range 2-18 GHz proves the effectiveness of presented topology

Gallium arsenide 0.5–18 GHz antenna front‐end with integrated limiter and differential to single ended low‐noise amplifier

“…Actually, a large number of broadband amplifiers with a non-zero common-mode amplification has been reported in the literatures [1][2][3][4][5] and they require an additional balun to drive differential mode antennas. Many solutions have been already proposed in the literatures [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19], both as passive or active architectures, but all of them experiment some drawbacks for the considered application. Typically, a balun composed of passive components has a large size (in the order of several square centimetres), and usually has a relatively narrow bandwidth.…”