Ultra-low-noise InP-MMIC amplifiers for 85-115 GHz

This paper describes a high-performance Indium Phosphide (InP) MMIC amplifier, which has been developed for application in ultra-low-noise, imaging-array receivers. The four-stage amplifier exhibits more than 15 dB gain, better than 10 dB input and output return loss and exceptionally low noise figure over the 85-115 GHz frequency range. Only one design pass was required to obtain very good agreement between the predicted and measured characteristics of the circuit. This represents an outstanding achievement in millimetre-wave MMIC design. The overall amplifier performance is comparable to the best ever reported for MMIC amplifiers in this frequency band.