A 2-18 GHz wideband high dynamic range receiver MMIC

In this paper, a 2 to 18 GHz wideband receiver MMIC for EW applications is presented. The receiver comprises a balanced cascode travelling wave LNA, a wideband active balun and a cold-FET ring mixer. The MMIC was fabricated using the TriQuint GaAs pHEMT process, using 0.25 /spl mu/m gate length devices. The measured conversion gain is greater than 7.8 dB between 3 GHz and 20 GHz. The RF input return loss is better than 10 dB between 3 GHz and 21.5 GHz. The receiver requires a drain bias voltage of 5 V and draws a drain current of approximately 260 mA. This wideband receiver is believed to be the first fully integrated single-chip receiver MMIC covering the 2 to 18 GHz frequency band.