C-Band Low-Noise Amplifier MMIC with an Average Noise Temperature of 44.5 K and 24.8 mW Power Consumption

This paper reports on a 4 – 8 GHz (C-band) low-noise amplifier monolithic microwave integrated circuit in 50 nm metamorphic high electron mobility transistor technology aimed for the use in large scale systems. The two-stage design exhibits a small-signal gain of 31 dB and a room temperature average noise temperature of 44.5 K between 4 and 8 GHz with a minimum of 38.4 K. The power consumption of the amplifier at optimal noise bias is only 24.8 mW. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the amplifier has the lowest noise temperature reported among monolithic microwave integrated circuits that do not utilize an off-chip input matching network in C-band.