Highly robust X-band LNA with extremely short recovery time

GaN-based low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) recently were shown to provide high ruggedness together with low noise figure. These LNAs allow for simplified receiver architectures, e.g., since no limiter is required to protect the input. This paper for the first time presents an investigation of the recovery time of a highly rugged GaN LNA. The X-band LNA is shown to survive input overdrive powers up to 46 dBm under pulsed and 40 dB under cw conditions, with a noise figure of 2.8 dB. Extremely short recovery times below 10 ns were simulated and proved to be below the measurement resolution.