50-dB Attenuation Range 3-bit Low Insertion Loss Ku-Band and Ka-Band 100nm GaAs Digital Step Attenuators

This paper presents 50-dB attenuation range low insertion loss 100nm Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) digital step attenuators at the Ku-band and Ka-band. The distributed type, combined with parallel RC compensation and reduced-size quarter-wavelength techniques, is utilized to achieve low insertion loss, good attenuation, and phase error. Specifically, the 14-18 GHz DSA exhibits an insertion loss of less than 4.8 dB and a Root-Mean-Square (RMS) amplitude error of 0.72 dB. Similarly, the 34-37 GHz DSA achieves an insertion loss of under 6.4 dB and RMS amplitude error of 1.14 dB. The output third-order intercept point (OIP3) of both designs is approximately 40 dBm.

I. Introduction

One of the important components in communication and radar systems is the attenuator, whose primary function is to control the amplitude of the signal. With requirements such as a large attenuation range, low amplitude error, low phase error and low insertion loss, DSA has been a highly attractive research topic that has been studied for many years