Technologies, Design, and Applications of Low-Noise Amplifiers at Millimetre-Wave: State-of-the-Art and Perspectives

Abstract

An overview of applicable technologies and design solutions for monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) operating at millimeter-wave are provided in this paper. The review starts with a brief description of the targeted applications and corresponding systems. Advanced technologies are presented highlighting potentials and drawbacks related to the considered possibilities. Design techniques, applicable to different requirements, are presented and analyzed. An LNA operating at V-band (59-66 GHz) is designed and tested following the presented guidelines, demonstrating state-of-the-art results in terms of noise figure (average NF < 2 dB). A state-of-the-art table, reporting recent results available in open literature on this topic, is provided and examined, focusing on room temperature operation and performance in cryogenic environment. Finally, trends versus frequency and perspectives are outlined.2 of 18 performance at least up to 300 GHz. Few technologies are capable of fulfilling such requirement and even less are industrial-grade ones. Most are available in research labs, and some, typically the ones originating in the USA, may be subject to export restriction or end user certification.Current state-of-the-art mmw-LNA are realized either in indium phosphide (InP) high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) or gallium arsenide (GaAs) metamorphic HEMT (mHEMT) with gate lengths shorter than 100 nm. The latter parameter represents, nowadays, a "threshold" value for millimeter-wave operation. In fact, the great majority of mmw-LNAs analyzed in this review are realized featuring a gate length equal or shorter than 100 nm.HEMT is in hetero-structure transistor where a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) is created at the interface of two different contacting material due to their different energy bandgaps. Such 2DEG present very high electron saturation velocity and is well suited for high-frequency and low-noise applications.In the following, the main features of each technology and how each one can be gainfully employed to achieve low-noise performance are briefly described. Akgiray et al. provide a recent and detailed analysis of technologies for ultra-low-noise applications for operation at millimeter-wave and the relative transistor noise model in [3]. Indium PhosphideInP HEMT transistors have long been the semiconductor of choice for extremely low-noise amplifiers operating in RF, microwave, and millimeter-wave bands due to their superior noise and gain performance up to 300 GHz and even above. Significantly developed in the 1990s, InP HEMT monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) can be found in both defense applications (such as secure communications) and scientific applications, which typically consist of some form of very high-frequency radiometry, capable of detecting the vanishing small signals travelling from outer space. On the other hand, among all semiconductors, InP experiences slow development due to its niche market and, consequently, tends to be one of the mos...

Design and Validation of 100 nm GaN-On-Si Ka-Band LNA Based on Custom Noise and Small Signal Models

“…As soon as GaAs grew in popularity for RF and microwave applications, silicon-based devices were rapidly replaced because of their much lower frequency limit and higher losses. The peculiar versatility of GaAs allowed the design and realization of different modules with remarkable performances [3][4][5], which could be assembled together, realizing more complex structures such as transmit-receive modules (TRMs). However, the main limitation of GaAs devices has always been the relatively low output power.…”