Miniaturising of K-Band Coplanar MMIC-Amplifiers by Using Lumped Elements

Abstract

As MMICs become more widespread in commercial appllcations the costs of production gain increased attention. For the MMIC-Designer it is important to reduce the chip size, while keeping the electrical characteristics. To demonstrate which size reduction is possible using lumped elements, this paper documents the comparison of a distributed and a lumped element MMIC K-band amplifier in coplanar line technique. The distributed element amplifier is a two-stage design and needs a size of 3 mm2. In the frequency range from 18 to 20 GHz the gain is more than 12 dB. The lumped element amplifier is a three-stage design, which has a size of 1 mm2. For the same frequency range the gain is more than 23 dB.

MMIC medium‐power amplifier in K band with matching and power‐divider/combiner networks implemented with the use of lumped elements

“…In general, at frequencies above the Ku band, the distributed elements are preferred for implementing the passive circuitry. Nevertheless, significant size reduction can be obtained in K-band monolithic designs using lumped elements, as was already demonstrated with the use of coplanar technology in [1].…”