W-band heterodyne receiver module with 27 K noise temperature

Abstract

We present noise temperature and gain measurements of a W-band heterodyne module populated with MMIC LNAs designed and fabricated using a 35 nm InP HEMT process. The module has a WR-10 waveguide input. GPPO connectors are used for the LO input and the I and Q IF outputs. The module is tested at both ambient (300 K) and cryogenic (25 K) temperatures. At 25 K physical temperature, the module has a noise temperature in the range of 27-45 K over the frequency band of 75-111 GHz. The module gain varies between 15 dB and 27 dB. The band-averaged module noise temperature of 350 K and 33 K were measured over 80-110 GHz for the physical temperature of 300 K and 25 K, respectively. The resulting cooling factor is 10.6.

Passives design for a high performance W-band amplifier

“…Previously, this high gain is obtained by cascading several monolithic amplifiers [2] [3]. The challenges of achieving more than 40 dB gain by a single LNA mainly lie on two aspects: One is the limited f t /f max of the process.…”