Ultra-wideband, high-gain GaAs and InP-MMIC amplifiers

This paper describes ultra-wide bandwidth GaAs and InP MMIC amplifiers, which have been developed for application in defence surveillance receivers and as a component of wideband microwave/photonic interfaces. These circuits have been implemented using a novel distributed amplifier topology, which provides superior gain-bandwidth performance when compared with a conventional distributed design. A typical InP-based, three-stage amplifier exhibits a bandwidth of 0.5-50 GHz with more than 20 dB gain, better than 10 dB input and output return loss.