A millimeter-wave 6-bit GaAs monolithic digital attenuator with low insertion phase shift

A millimeter-wave 6-bit GaAs monolithic digital attenuator with low insertion phase shift is presented. This attenuator is fabricated with E.D process, the six main attenuation bits are 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16dB. From the measurement results of this MMIC chip in the 19-23GHz band show that the 6-bit GaAs monolithic digital attenuator has 0.5dB resolution and 35.5dB dynamic attenuation range, return loss are less than -11dB for all attenuation states, and attenuation accuracy: +1.31dB/-0.13dB, insertion phase shift: +3*/-5*; referenced insertion loss <; -2.88dB; the chip size is 3.0mm×2.0mm×0.1mm; the control voltage is 0V-5V.

I. Introduction

In recent years, the basic requirements of MMIC digital attenuators include low insertion loss of reference state, high attenuation accuracy, large attenuation range, small size, low cost and high reliability and so on. Especially, digital attenuator with millimeter-wave has been widely used in Radar [1] – [2].