Monolithic HEMT LNAS for radar, EW, and COMM

Several monolithic HEMT (high electron mobility transistors) low-noise amplifiers (LNAs), designed for 7-11-GHz airborne radar, 2-18-GHz electronic warfare, and 20-GHz military satellite communications applications have demonstrated outstanding performance. Two-stage MMICs (monolithic microwave integrated circuits) achieve as low as 1.2 dB noise figure at 10 GHz with 15 dB gain, and typically less than 1.8 dB noise figure from 7-11 GHz. A distributed amplifier demonstrates 3.0-5.2 dB noise figure with around 11 dB gain from 2-18 GHz. Finally, a three-stage MMIC achieves less than 2.0 dB noise figure from 18-23 GHz with 29 dB associated gain, representing the highest level of performance yet reported for a low-noise MMIC.<
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