A compact low DC consumption 24-GHz Cascode HEMT VGA

This paper presents a 24-GHz high gain and wide gain control range in cascode device technique. The VGA is implemented in 0.15-µm GaAs PHEMT process. This VGA has 15.7 dB gain and 18.5% 3-dB bandwidth and over 20 dB gain control range at 24 GHz, with a low dc power of 13.5 mW. These results indicate that cascode technique is suitable for low power consumption and small chip size for high frequency amplifiers using GaAs pHEMT process.