A novel monolithic balanced switching low noise amplifier

We report a monolithic novel balanced switching low-noise amplifier for use as a low-noise broadband switch or 180/spl deg/ phase shifter for application in microwave and millimeter wave control circuits. Each arm of the balanced amplifier consists of a two-stage low noise amplifier cascaded with a reflected phase shifter. By controlling the reflected phase shifters, the balanced switching low-noise amplifier exhibits two on states and two off states with an average on-off isolation of >20 dB within 5 GHz bandwidth. The two on states show an average gain of 7 dB with 180/spl deg/ phase difference from 80 to 100 GHz and an average noise figure of 6 dB from 92 to 96 GHz. These results are best data ever reported for a switch or 180/spl deg/ phase shifter at W-band.<
>