An 11–40-GHz High-Power Switch With Miniaturized High-Order Topology Using 100-nm GaN-on-Si HEMTs

This article proposes an ultrawideband switch with miniaturized high-order topology. A 100-nm gate-length GaN-on-Si process is used for high-power capability, and the modeling of the GaN high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) is given to analyze its parasitic values. For wideband or high isolation, the high-order switch is one solution, whose die area is naturally large. To address this issue, a miniaturized coupled-resonator switch topology was proposed using inverter transformation, where two parallel LC tanks and four inverters are replaced by two series LC tanks. Furthermore, a miniaturized coupling structure is introduced using a common inductor to replace three individual ones, contributing to an 86% size reduction. For demonstration, one 11–40.5-GHz single-pole single-throw (SPST) switch with four transmission poles (TPs) has been designed and fabricated. A small chip size of 0.32 mm2, low ON-state minimum insertion loss (IL) of 0.55 dB, and a high-power capability of 1.3 W are achieved.