Novel Integrated Ka-Band Amplitude Limiting Low Noise Amplifier Design

Low noise amplifier is a key component of RF receiver front-end. An amplitude limiting low noise amplifier (LNA) based on 0.09 μm GaAs pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor (pHEMT) technology is designed and implemented in this paper. The amplitude limiting LNA adopts an integrated design and works at frequencies of 34 ~ 37 GHz. The actual measurement results show that the proposed amplitude limiting LNA has a gain of over 23 dB in the working band. Its input and output voltage standing–wave ratio (VSWR) is less than 1.6 and has a noise figure (NF) below 4.2 dB. It can withstand a peak pulse power of 10 W, with a pulse width of 50 µs, a duty cycle of 10%. It has the advantages of broadband, low noise, high power tolerance and small size.