Active single pole double throw switches for D-Band applications

This paper presents active single pole double throw (SPDT) switches, based on a novel compact transistor unit cell, working in the D-Band (110-170GHz) frequency range. Two switches for the transmit- and receive side were designed and manufactured using a GaAs mHEMT process. The unit cell consists of the integration of a common-gate stage for loss compensation and a shunt-stage to achieve high isolation. On-wafer measurement results of the processed monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) SPDT switches show a maximum gain of 3.2dB and 3.3dB with 3dB bandwidths of 47GHz and 38.7GHz, respectively. Within the 3dB bandwidth the isolation of both switches is higher than 21.5dB.