A Novel 100 MHz-45 GHz GaN HEMT Low Noise Non-Gate-Terminated Distributed Amplifier Based on a 6-Inch 0.15µm GaN-SiC mm-Wave Process Technology

This paper reports on a novel low noise gate termination-less Cascode distributed amplifier (DA) MMIC based on a 0.15 m GaN-HEMT 6-inch wafer process technology. To the author's knowledge, the 100MHz-45 GHz BW with greater than 10 dB gain is the widest reported for a GaN HEMT distributed amplifier (for practical gain > 10dB) and the first published mm-wave results produced on 6” GaN-SiC wafers. The unique gate-termination-less topology enables a NF of 1.6 dB at 250 MHz and 1.6-3 dB NF from 130MHz to 26 GHz without significantly compromising IP3 compared to the resistive terminated approach. This is also believed to be the lowest noise figure GaN DA results reported to date for multi-decade operation. A Psat of 29-33 dBm and IP3 > 37 dBm are measured up to 18 GHz. The new multi-decade DA NF, gain and linearity performance capability combined with a 6-in GaN-SiC technology has farreaching implications to coherent fiber optic, broadband wireless, SDR, and instrumentation applications.