Design of Ka-band broadband low-noise amplifier using 100nm gate-length GaN on silicon technology

Abstract

Due to the high breakdown voltage and better linearity of gallium nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistor (HEMT), GaN based RF front-end is widely researched and studied. In this paper, a Ka-band cascode low-noise amplifier (LNA) designed with 100nm gate-length GaN-on-silicon technology is presented. With novel methods such as the introduction of high-pass filters and standing wave filtering capacitors, the LNA achieves a stable gain of 21-22.8dB and a noise figure (NF) of 0.9-1.3dB from 22GHz to 38GHz. The input and output return loss are better than-10dB in band of concern. This LNA occupies an area of 2.3mm × 0.9mm and consumes 265-mW DC power. Compared with silicon-on-insulator (SOI), indium phosphide (InP) and gallium arsenide (GaAs) LNAs, the proposed GaN LNA exhibits better performance of linearity, as well as competitive gain and NF.