A highly linear MESFET

A highly linear GaAs MESFET has been developed. This device incorporates a spike profile in its active channel and was designed specifically for linearity. A third-order intercept (IP3) and a 1 dB compression power of 43 dBm and 19 dBm, respectively, have been measured on a 400 mu m device at 10 GHz. The difference between these two numbers, 24 dB, is the largest yet reported for a MESFET. This device also dissipates only 400 mW of DC power yielding a linearity figure-of-merit (IP3/P/sub DC/) of 50.<
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