A new method for active device load equivalent circuit extraction for MMICs

Active device loads for monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) have been extensively studied and a new procedure for the extraction of their equivalent circuit has been developed. The procedure requires the availability of a coplanar three-terminal device for accurate model extraction. The new procedure is accurate, general, and easy to apply. Its validity has been demonstrated by extracting a scalable bias-dependent small-signal equivalent circuit of PHEMT-based active device loads up to 40 GHz. A good agreement between measured and modeled data has been obtained, confirming the validity and the accuracy of the proposed method.