A 26–30 GHz 2-stage Ka-Band CPW MMIC LNA Development with using AlGaN/GaN HEMT on SiC Technology for 5G Applications
摘要
This article presents design steps of a Gallium Nitride (GaN) on Silicon Carbide (SiC) High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) with fabrication process in general terms. Secondly, the design of a Ka-band Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) low-noise amplifier (LNA) based on GaN on SiC HEMT technology is introduced and verified with simulation and measurement results. In the design, 4 × 50 µm AlGaN/GaN HEMT with 80 nm T-gate structure, which has measured ft of 89 GHz and fmax of 115 GHz performance, was designed, fabricated and measured. According to 4 × 50 µm AlGaN/GaN HEMT measurement results, a signal transistor was accomplished the maximum current density of 575 mA/mm and transconductance (gm) of 135 mS/mm. Afterwards, a 2-stage MMIC LNA, which was developed with utilizing co-planar waveguide technology (CPW) technology because of its advantages such as low-cost and ease of fabrication, was developed with utilizing the developed 4 × 50 µm HEMT. The proposed design was achieved a measured small signal gain of higher than 15.5 dB in the frequency range from 26 to 30 GHz, which yields a fractional bandwidth of 14.3%, while input and output (I/O) reflection loss performances were below -8 dB. Furthermore, the measured noise figure (NF) of the MMIC LNA is better than 2.1 dB for operating frequency band with a total power dissipation (Pdiss) of 384 mW at room temperature. Finally, the total size of the device is roughly 2.52 mm2.